RWL060 John Murphy How to Transition from Corporate Life to Thriving Remote Entrepreneurship with John Murphy

Building a Location Independent Lifestyle

Speaker 1

0:00

Well, hello everybody from the Remote Work Life community. It's Alex again, Alex Wilson-Campbell, and I have a wonderful guest. I've got John Murphy with me.

Speaker 1

0:10

I've been following John, unbeknownst to him, for a little while. John is somebody who I follow because he is really building something, really building something of real substance, and I'm not going to go too much into it. I'm going to ask John a few questions. I want to see if you can actually sort of fill in the gaps in terms of what John is building. And all I can really say is that he's really building something that has given him the opportunity to be location independent. It's given the opportunity to earn a good living while doing something which I think is really beneficial to both people and planet, and he's doing it in a way that he wants to do it and he's gone. By no means been an easy journey for him, but he's stuck to it, as all the best entrepreneurs do, and he's making a real success, turning over six figures regularly on a monthly basis. But, as I said, he's doing something that's really worthwhile to people and planet. So, John, I want to welcome you to the Remote Work Life podcast and thank you for speaking to me.

Speaker 2

1:29

Yeah, thanks for the invitation. I like having these type of conversations, so it's a pleasure Excellent.

Speaker 1

1:35

And John, as I usually do with conversations such as this, I want to know about you and how you got to where you are now, because it's a very interesting story and you have been able to fulfill an ambition that many of my listeners want to fulfill, and that is essentially, you know, not just not just necessarily fire your boss, in a sense, but but, like I said, really living something, living a work life, lifestyle that, um, you've created yourself and you're passionate about. So tell us about how you got to where you are now well it's.

Speaker 2

2:16

It's been a long road, um, so I've I've always worked in like the corporate in you know, multinational companies. Most recently, for the last seven or eight years, I've been working for ge in general electric uh, I'm based in italy but, um, you know, g is a global company, so I was working in finance for them and I'm pretty, I'm pretty bad with numbers like uh. So I, like I'm I would say I'm borderline dyslexic. I failed maths, I failed lower maths in school, and lower maths in school is pretty easy. But I got into finance just because I was in Italy and I spoke English and the Americans needed somebody to speak English and do some finance. So it's never been something that was easy to me or even remotely interesting, to be quite honest. So I always just worked to pay the bills and so I wasn't really climbing a ladder as such. And so my wife is Italian and she on the other side, has a very good career and every few years she would get a good opportunity and she would say to me something along the lines of how do you feel about living in this other city? And so far it's always been somewhere else in Italy. And what would happen to me is I would say, okay, let's go, I quit my job, and then I would relocate and then I find a new job that I don't really like. So I'm always starting from the beginning. So I figured there must be a way that I can work from wherever, so that those conversations are easy for both me and my wife, so, you know, she can take opportunities without feeling the pressure of, you know, having me quit my job, of course. And if I can work from anywhere, well then that's even better for me.

Speaker 2

4:06

So I'd gotten into the idea a long, long, maybe five years ago, five years, five years ago I, um, I had this idea about inventing a product because I figured, if you have to, if you want, if you want to, you know, maybe sell something online and make money remotely, you have to invent something. I tried really hard to come up with something. I thought I had a really good idea, but I wasn't sure how to do it. So in the meantime, what I did was I figured I'll just build a website on WordPress and see how that works. So when I do have the idea, I'll have figured out some of the other things I need to learn and then I can start with it. So I ended up I built like a website. It was just like johnmurphycom or something like that.

Speaker 2

4:50

Uh, I was living in Florence at the time, so just to populate the website, it was like the top 10 things to see in Florence, so you know something like that. Um, the domain, the domain's gone, so no need even to look for it because it doesn't work. So I picked up one skill and then never followed through on the invention because it just didn't make sense. But that sort of got me into the whole thing of probably what most people do you go online and say how to make money online. And then I found a book called the 4-Hour Workweek. And when I read Tim Ferriss' book that was just my mind was blown and I've never looked back. So that was a big moment for me. That book, that was three years ago, Three years ago, okay.

Speaker 1

5:40

Okay, so you've talked about GE and I mean, what was it about GE? Or generally that sort of corporate setting that you didn't like and that made you sort of had that desire to get out of it?

Speaker 2

5:57

Well, the company was so big, there were so many things that people were doing that was redundant, but it was just because that was the way to do things and it was just like if I would, for example, if I had to do, I worked in finance and in the US they have a quarter closing, so the end of March, the end of June, the end of September and Christmas, and we would work like 10 days straight, 15 hour days. Oh wow, so that would. For me, that was like Easter, christmas and June and September cancelled, you know, and it was really stressful and all we were doing was just make building reports in Excel. Those reports would then go to somebody else and somebody else would send it to somebody else and and it was a real, just waste of time. It was just people working busily to do nothing, and it was just very frustrating. So, um, I really didn't want to do that longterm.

Transitioning to Remote Work Success

Speaker 2

6:58

Um and there, and there was always the, the whisper of ah, they're going to fire us. They're the whisper of they're going to fire us. They're going to, you know, like, relocate all of the jobs to the Philippines, which which they were doing. I was, I was a financial analyst for Europe and there was one of my colleagues for each like each continent or each region, and over the course of the last year that I worked there, all of my colleagues were fired. Oh right, so the writing was on the wall, and then, when you have that sort of thing on your mind, it's not a good place to work anyway. So I was over it. Uh, I was over it a long time before I quit now.

Speaker 1

7:39

I can imagine, by the way, if you can hear hear in the background vibrations and loud noises I have a builder for the company. So I apologize if it's to you, john first, and also if it's disturbing your enjoyment of the podcast. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about it. But yes, john, thank you. And so you were working as a financial analyst and you were actually working remotely as well, weren't you? This is not your first experience of remote work.

Speaker 2

8:07

Yeah, you've done your research. Okay. So yeah, because, like I said earlier, when my wife would suggest you know why don't we move here? Because I've got this job opportunity the last time that happened while I was still working for GE, because they were firing people left, right and center. Instead of firing me and giving me a package or something, they kept giving me everybody else's work, which was really annoying. So I had two official roles and they were two full-time roles. One was like a billing auditor and the other one was the financial analyst. One was like a billing auditor and the other one was the financial analyst.

Speaker 2

8:49

And what happened was my wife came to me and said I have this really good opportunity. She's now the CEO of a shipping company in Italy. So it was a big deal. And she said you know you're in Florence, but we're in Florence. But why don't we move up to Liguria, so close to Genoa? Because there's a really good opportunity, liguria so close to Genoa, because there's a really good opportunity.

Speaker 2

9:06

So I approached GE and said I'm moving to, I'm moving like 300 kilometers away. Can I work remotely? And they were like, oh no, that's a terrible idea. And then they thought well, if John leaves, we're gonna have to fire two people because John's now doing two things. So they sort of put themselves in a corner and they said well, let's see how. Let's say let's see how it works out. So we moved to a small town called Savona, close to Genoa. I started working remotely for GE from home, because it was like 300 kilometers away so and that lasted for like two and a half years more than three years maybe and that lasted for like two and a half years, more like three years maybe. So I did get the opportunity to get used to working from home.

Speaker 1

9:51

And I mean it's obviously seems as though you're cut out for that kind of work.

Speaker 2

10:02

How was the actual transition for you working from working in office to working remotely. Most people say that they wouldn't be able to handle the isolation but I, I just I just love it.

Speaker 2

10:09

Um, I'm not really a social person like I'll. You know, I'm nice. It's not like I go around, like you know, barking at people but I'm just not naturally like a really open, extrovert sort of person. I'm pretty introvert, so, working from home, as long as I've got stuff to do and I have the time to do it in, I can just sit down and get to work and uh and uh, you know, and I'm happy that way. You know, I've got uh. You won't be able to see, but I've got my english setter sleeping on the sofa beside me. Yeah, I don't know if you'd be able to see him there, but that's it there.

Speaker 1

10:41

He is okay. One of the benefits of working at home.

Speaker 2

10:45

Eh yeah, I've got my dog with me, diego, and I just get to work. I can just go and make coffee whenever I want to. You know, I mean it's, it's. It works much better for me. That's just because that's my character and I really enjoy it. And that was also very beneficial in me being able to build a business for myself, because I saved two hours a day on travel, so that was two hours a day and I used two hours a day to build a business, so it worked out pretty well.

Speaker 1

11:16

And I mean, you've touched on something that is really a recurring theme actually when it comes to people who work remotely, and that is knowing yourself, knowing who you are, what, what kind of uh environment suits you.

Entrepreneurship Transition Success Story

Speaker 1

11:28

You know, I mean, there are people who are introverts who work remotely, there are extroverts who work remotely, but one thing that sort of um I suppose uh is is a common, common thread is that they know who they are and they know where their strengths lie. And I mean, what would you say are the other, I mean other than your? Actually, we're going to go into a bit more, we're going to reveal that a bit more in terms of what your strengths are, but in terms of um, how did you go about understanding? Because I mean, when you, when you, when you're in a corporate setting and then you make, you then decide that you want to make a transition to working remotely and then you decide you want to sort of transition away, let's, let's talk about that first. How did that moment come when you, you thought you got to the point where it was the right time for you to transition away? How long did that take you to get to that point?

Speaker 2

12:24

so transition away meaning like quit, quit the the full-time job yeah.

Speaker 1

12:28

So move away from GE and then get to the point where you're thinking to yourself.

Speaker 2

12:33

I've kind of fast-forwarded quite a lot actually to where you are now, I guess so, um, I started, um, I started my side business because that's what it was in the beginning At the beginning of 2017, so three years ago I left GE in September, so not a long time ago, less than six months, or maybe six months ago was the end of September I quit my job, so it's like five months ago I quit.

Speaker 2

13:04

So I was doing both for a very long time, for, you know, two and a half years, I was doing both. The idea was that if I, if I could save two hours a day by not commuting, what could I do in two hours? That could generate, I don't know, like maybe 500 euro a month or 1000 euro a month, um, and then that would just be extra. And if I could because all the stuff I was reading online is, you know, you can just do a few things and you sit back and money just falls from the sky and it's great. So I figured, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. You know that sounds easy. So I went down a few rabbit holes on youtube and you know, there are lots of videos and lots of videos out there and lots of people promising riches beyond your wildest dreams.

Speaker 2

13:48

So I figured, even if I, even if I do it poorly, I should be able to make a little bit of money on the side. Um, and it was. You know, it wasn't easy because, um, the more I got into it, the more I thought, well, if I I'm doing, if I'm spending two hours a day on this and you know, I think I'm making some traction what if I was? What if I was to spend four or five hours, you know, on this? So I would, um, I would end up like working late, you know, evenings and weekends as well. And when I realized that I could actually make my salary from my side business, that's when I started thinking well, what if I was doing that full time and not working for GE? How far could I take it? When I started making money and I started surpassing my GE my monthly salary?

Speaker 2

14:46

In Italy, monthly salaries are like $1,000. 1500 euro a month. So it's nothing. You know it's not a huge thing. It's not like a oh my god, I'm giving up a full-time job. It's not like a six figure a year thing. Even if you're managing like 30 countries, oh wow. You know, that's just not how it works. So I didn't have a huge I I wasn't something huge to to beat um but I figured if I can replace my G salary, maybe I can just do that and then work on it full time and maybe I can earn more.

Speaker 2

15:19

So I had that conversation quite a lot with my wife and she's a lot more cautious than I am. I was over my job already. So I was like, ok, I've matched. This month, this is the first month I've matched my G salary. I'm going to quit my job and see if I can do that again every month. And my wife was like, well, maybe you should see if you know if it's a regular thing before you quit your job, because in Italy, you know, it's not very easy to find a job, so it's occupied, unemployment is pretty high and so it's not very easy.

Speaker 2

15:51

So I ended up doing it for a while and each month I was making more and more money from my side business and my GE job was taking up all of my time. So it was like the 80-20 rule the 20% of my time was producing 80% of my income. And I was thinking why am I spending like 10 hours a day on GE, I could be spending six hours a day on my own, and then, you know, take it from there. So we got to a point where I just physically couldn't do it anymore. It was just too much. I was just overwhelmed work, you know. You know, running too many things, and I got to a point where I can't do it anymore and in September I'd already, I'd already broken 100K a month. August last year August last year was the first time I broke was the second time I broke 100k and I've been doing that every month since um and I was, and I quit my job in September, went on holidays and when I came back I was full-time doing my thing.

Speaker 1

16:52

So no, it's a wonderful story. I mean, we haven't got into the specifics of what, what john does, deliberately, because john and I were part of a community. I'm not going to advertise the name of the community on the podcast, but we're part of a community where, um, people are at different stages of developing their ideas to achieve what John is essentially doing right now, and part of that involves actually choosing a niche and choosing an area to focus your business on, and one of the rules, or all of the rules of the actual community, revolve around not revealing the specific niche that you are, um, you're, you're going into. So we're not going to go specifics into the niche, but we can talk about things around the niche, and john essentially, uh, has set up a, an e-commerce business, um, and that is the. You know, that's the choice, that's the decision that John has made.

Exploring Online Business Opportunities

Speaker 1

17:55

I'm actually it's an earlier phase than John is now where I'm deciding what my, what my niche is, but it's one of those things and John alluded to it before he, he, he talked about, you know, wanting to sell a product, and that was something that's been burning in the back of my head for a while in terms of wanting to do that. But what I want to know from you, john, is how did you get to the point of? So you're at GE and just before you, well before you've left GE, part of your process must have been deciding what sort of rabbit hole, I suppose, as it were to choose, because there's so many different options like there's affiliate marketing, there's e-commerce, there's course creation, there's digital agency. How did you make a decision on which avenue to go down?

Speaker 2

18:49

Well, you know, as these guys that teach programs for e-commerce and for affiliate marketing and all of these online methods, there was a, there was a free mini course and I did the mini course and I thought, well, let's just go, was a waste of, it was just my time. And as I started going down these rabbit holes and watching YouTube videos, it seemed apparent that there were a lot of people doing this and it seemed to be working. And I figured, the more I scratched the surface, the more it seemed like it wasn't a get rich fast scheme, but it was a real business model and that's what sort of you know attracted me to it more, because the more I realized it was an actual business, the more or the less of like a scammy sort of you know get rich quick scheme thing and then in a puff of smoke it's gone the next day. So, you know, because I did, I did, I was already looking at e-commerce because when I, when I alluded to you know I was trying to make a product, I had this idea in my head.

Speaker 2

20:02

I wanted to buy my brother a really cool gift and he's always losing his wallet. He get, he gets in a taxi after like 10 beers and then he wakes next morning he doesn't have his mobile phone or his wallet and I'm like, okay, he's like, you know, he's um, he keep and he keep. He would keep losing his wallet all the time, um, so I figured I could um make um a small wallet made out of like a metal type of wallet, because I had like it like a card holder, but built in it had like a, a tracking device, you know, like a, like a gps tracker. Yeah, yeah, and it could. There could be an app on your phone and and there wasn't anything like this at the time, um, because now there is, because I didn't actually I didn't follow through yeah because and um, so I figured, okay, how do I do that?

Speaker 2

20:48

because the wallets are available and gps trackers are available, how do I get them in there? And I figured, if I was going to try to produce it I think I think I I barely did any sort of, you know, research and it seemed like just to produce a prototype it would cost something like 85 euro for one right. So so how much was I going to have to charge in order to make a profit? And I was like nobody's going to spend like 150 euro on a wallet, you know, just because you know. And I was like, yeah, that's not going to work. So I sort of thought I really liked the idea because I figured that would be perfect for my brother. I couldn't find it, so I figured I'm going to make one.

Speaker 2

21:31

It didn't work. I mean it didn't, I didn't, I didn't follow through and then about a year later, there were like five kickstarter campaigns, all very similar, and if you were to look for like a wallet with tracking or gps or something, there's like five or six different companies that make them. So I do regret not trying to figure out how it works, but that did get me into the whole idea of selling a product online and if I can't come up with something, maybe I can sell somebody else's you know an existing product. And that got me into the whole um, drop shipping model, which is the, the model that we're trying, we're trying to figure out. So, um and uh, you know, and it's a real business model. So there are there are less, less business model methods of going doing doing drop shipping, yeah, but you know the the course that we're doing.

Speaker 1

22:21

It's a high ticket drop shipping, so it's real suppliers in a real good product, real customers, and it's a real business so it is, it is and I think there's this, it's like you said, you're talking about the rabbit holes and that that is something that I I went through is just probably people can spend years, actually, you know, looking at these videos on youtube and then, just you know, taking this mini course here and then paying for a course and then realizing actually this is not quite for me and but, like you, you said, you've been able to sort of cut through all the smoke and mirrors, because there are lots of people online on YouTube talking about how they do dropshipping and not all dropshippers are made, are sort of equal. There's certain drop shippers that will sell fairly low ticket um supplies and they I mean they may get their supplies from a certain certain place, whereas people like john, he's he's really sort of done the groundwork, he's put in a lot of time. Um, and also another thing that john touched on, his ideas were around or at least his ideas evolved around, solving actually a problem. That was a real problem which his brother was having at the time, and now his store which he has, his e-commerce store that to me it also solves a problem. We're not going to go into the store itself, but it solves a couple of big problems.

Speaker 1

23:58

The idea of what he would do came, I guess. Am I right in saying?

Speaker 2

24:01

that, john, was it? Was it more that you're focused on a problem first? Um, when I, when it came to selecting a niche, um, I was conscious that it was. It was solving a problem, although it wasn't a, it wasn't a big decision factor for me. But if I was to do it again, I would pay more attention to is this solving a problem? Because after a couple of years of doing this, I realized that if you can sell something that's solving a problem, it's really easy to market. Uh, so you're able to go out to those people and give them a solution to something that they're having, and it's it makes selling a lot easier no, it really does, and although I think as much as you did, it sounds like you were able to to make decisions quite easily, quite quickly.

Speaker 1

24:50

Am I right in saying that? Um?

Speaker 2

24:55

I guess I guess, um, maybe from the outside it looks crooked because of um, I mean, now I'm talking about making like 100k a month in in revenue and stuff. But it took me two and a half years to get here and in the first I think the first six months I was bleeding money, you know. So it wasn't an easy thing Choosing the niche. I guess it was relatively easy because there's a process, you know, and I just figured okay, this is what the process is telling me to do, this is what it is, and I'm just that's it. I didn't want to second guess that, I just wanted to get started.

Speaker 1

25:35

So yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't by any means saying that the the actual process was easy, but that what I meant was for me it's been. I'm at the process now where it's a bit decision fatigue, to be honest with you. I've been looking at so many different uh niches that I'm thinking I'm almost sort of convincing myself that actually what can go wrong with this one, rather than thinking to myself this is what this one could provide, sort of thing. And I'm going from one niche to another, to another, to another. What was your mindset in terms of just making? Just making decisions like like that? I know you went for a process as well, but uh, well, it was the numbers.

Speaker 2

26:17

I mean, uh, when I got down to, when I got down to three options, um, you know there are certain things to do. You know you can go on to google trends and see how many people are actually going online looking for those things, and you know, the bigger the audience, the more opportunity you have. So it wasn't, I've never used my product. I don't know my product. You know, I'm not. It's not like it's a passion of mine. You know, I just brought it along with me. Maybe, maybe I shouldn't say that I have never even used one. So I mean, it's not something that that I do, but, um, so it was really just pretty clinical. I said, like, the numbers are telling me that this is the one, so this is the one, and if it didn't work, I would have found out. So, um, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't contemplate it too much.

Speaker 2

27:08

Niche selection, however, is really important, and I did make a few mistakes. I did. I did overlook a few few red flags and I probably would choose a different niche, but I'm glad I I just picked the niche and just made it work. There are, there are a lot easier things to sell, but yeah, I just did. I just the numbers told me what, what, what my most likely option was, and I just and I thought, okay, that's it, that's the store.

Speaker 1

27:38

And yes, there have been a few challenges for you along the way, because your background, if I'm right in saying I mean you've been a financial analyst but the sort of work that you're doing with your store now, I'm guessing there was quite a big learning curve for you there, right?

Speaker 2

27:57

Yeah, yeah, I mean you have to learn everything. So when I left school I went and did sports science. So I went to college to be like an aerobics and gym instructor, that sort of thing, and that was just because I skipped a year in school because I was really I wasn't really smart. I, you know, I'm not very academic, um, I was. I finished college when I was like 19 and I realized I joined I, I followed sports just because I like playing sports.

Speaker 2

28:27

But there's no career like a gym instructors. Uh, the career is career is pretty, it's pretty hard and there's not a lot. You either own a gym or you're cleaning mirrors in a gym. There's not really a, you know it's, it's. It's a very hard profession to do long-term and then get old, um, with your knees still intact. So it wasn't something that I was willing to pursue.

Speaker 2

28:50

Afterwards and when I was in school, my um, you know what are those teachers names, the ones where they like they, they sort of give you advice, uh, like a guidance counselor. So I spoke to my guidance counselor quite a lot in my later years in school and, um, you know, she would have me like, do these surveys and answer these questions and answer that, and then you'll get like a list of jobs that you'll be you'll qualify for at the end. And it was. It was just I. I did it twice, and once was prison officer and the other was like security guard, and I was basically just because you just have to show up right, and so that's that.

Speaker 2

29:27

That was that's where my head was, that you know. It's like okay, well, I don't know anything. So, no, I didn't have any sort of preparation. I didn't know how to build a website, I didn't know what e-commerce was, I don't. I didn't know about how to do online marketing, or I didn't even know how to write a blog post. So that's just stuff you just have to learn. When you're, when you're trying to figure out, when you have, when you have to post a blog, you think, okay, how do I write a blog? Go Go on Google and go how to write a blog. Or you ask somebody that just has done it already and you just you know.

Speaker 1

29:59

That, to me, is like it's the. We talked about characteristics earlier on, and I think that's like one of the many characteristics of some of the best entrepreneurs is that, okay, you haven't done something before, but then you find a way to to make it work and you did that and you, you you've overcome some really big challenges where that even some of the you know, some of the the the best um and seasoned sort of uh marketing professionals probably would have struggled to overcome, to get to where you are now right. So you, you had some issues, didn't you? With your um, your advertising, with your website yeah, that was.

Speaker 2

30:45

That was a big issue for me because in in e-commerce, you know when you're you're, you're learning how to how to market products online. The golden rule is that you run shopping ads on google. You how to market products online. The golden rule is that you run shopping ads on Google, you go to AdWords and you run shopping ads because that's like the fastest, most efficient way to get traffic to your, to get like qualified traffic to your product pages, to make a sale. So the idea is that you get, as you get, more sales than you spend on your initial AdWords investment and then you use that money then to run more ads. So you spend on your initial AdWords investment and then you use that money then to run more ads. So you're always making a little bit more profit. But nobody teaches how to do that. If you're selling a product that you're not allowed to run ads for, which I found out the hard way that my product is actually in violation of Google shopping ads, um, so when people ask me you know, oh, in violation, why? What do you sell? I like to tell them that I sell, um, uh, gun shaped vibrators dipped in cbd oil, because that sort of takes every category of all of the banned substances that you can, you can sell on on google. Um, uh, but it just turns out that Google just decided hey, you know, you're actually selling something that's not in our policy, so you're, you're, you're off and um, and that was that was almost a year ago actually. So I was doing pretty well. I was doing around 25, 30 K in revenue monthly, which would have been about $5 thousand dollars net profit at the end of the each month, which was good, I mean that's. You know that I was. I was happy with that and I was thinking if I, if I could do this, I would sign on the line just to guarantee this all the time. And I was happy because that's sort of what I was aiming for.

Speaker 2

32:28

Um, and it was at the end of april last year and april just blew up. I had a fantastic month and it was the first end of April last year and April just blew up. I had a fantastic month and it was the first time I broke 100K. I broke like 106K in sales and I thought, wow, and it's only April. You know, my high season is still on, it's still coming. So this is going to be a really good year and then, at the first of May, google just shut me down.

Speaker 2

32:55

And then, at the first of may, google just shut me down and my all my traffic and sales was like in the in my shop. In my shopify statistics you can see april, this is like this, and then may is like this, and it's like oh shit. And and all I was thinking was I'm so close to quitting my job. What does this mean? Does this mean that I have to continue doing both for another year? Does this mean? Does this mean that I have to continue doing boat for another year? Does this mean my store is over? Does this mean, like you know, I this is just a side hustle now and it's not going to be a full-time thing? Um, so I had to figure out, I had to learn more skills again. It was back to back to the drawing board. So, um, always be learning. I guess.

Speaker 1

33:49

Tell me about it. I mean, it's somebody I've been in. I mean, I'm not like a highly, highly sort of technical Google marketer, but I know the ins and outs of what it takes to be successful with e-commerce and that essentially, google ads, facebook ads the paid ads side of things is the lifeblood of many sort of e-commerce stores and the thing that they rely on to get their revenue to. So for me, it's like amazing that you teaching yourself Google ads you know being successful, getting to 100K in April then only to sort of realize that you're selling a product that is in violation of Google's policies. It's amazing that you then well, it's testament to you that you went on to sort of find a solution around that. Tell me how you found a solution to sort of, uh, counteract that well, um, at that point I knew I wasn't going to give up.

Speaker 2

34:41

I just didn't know what I was going to do, because there was no way I was going to just give up the dream of working remotely and independently and then going back to then working from g, because at that stage I already resented my day job. So to go back to it and just say, because at that stage I already resented my day job, so to go back to it and just say, okay, well, that was something I tried and failed at. Now, back to the day job, that would be just worse than before. So I was pretty depressed for about two days. It was like a Friday, and then I spent Saturday and Sunday. Just it was quiet. You know, I was just in my own head, thinking what do I do? What do I do? And then I just figured, okay, how did I learn e-commerce? And I thought, okay, well, I signed up for a course and I followed the expert's advice. Then, when it came to running Google Ads, what did I do? I contacted a Google Ads expert. I paid him for his time. I told him show me how to do this and I started doing it and it got me to a certain point. Then, when I realized I need organic traffic because paid traffic isn't an option, what did I do? I figured out who knows how to get paid traffic.

Speaker 2

35:45

I joined an affiliate website community and because basically what they do is they have, they build blog websites, they produce content, enough content to get lots of traffic, and then they direct traffic to Amazon products and they get a commission because they're not actually e-commerce stores, they're like affiliate Commission Amazon websites, but the method, the methodology is put something online to get organic traffic from people that are interested in certain things, educate them and then send to amazon and get a commission. So I thought, if I could apply the same logic and instead of sending them to amazon I'll send it to my product page, that could work. So I figured I'd take a bit of affiliate website you know, hearty websites, whatever called niche websites and maybe apply some of that logic and then some of the e-commerce logic. So I've got a. I've got a good blog post now, a good blog arrangement, I would say, and now I get more organic traffic than I did when I was running ads.

Speaker 2

36:51

I break 100k every month in sales and it's all organic. So you know, in last month I made I broke the 1 million in 12 months, so I officially became like a seven figure business. And so from February to February, it's like a seven figure business and I stopped running ads back in April. So that's pretty much all organic. So it was just figured out. How do I I, how do I learn how to do that? You know, like, if, if my organic traffic goes away, I have to figure out how do I, how do I become a master at, I don't know, pinterest or something you know there's always, you know there are always and there's always another thing I can do. So, um, I guess I just tried to figure it out and I did so and I'm still working on it. It's still going to get better this year, so it's it's still learning.

Speaker 1

37:42

I think I guess you can now understand, guys, why I invited John on on this podcast because, like I said, he's the personification of uh, you know, of an entrepreneur, and that sort of um, it, uh, it's just you come up with uh on some of the best entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1

37:59

When they're faced with with hurdles, they they find ways to overcome them. But this is next level because, again, I've done SEO myself as well and we're living in a time now, uh, where Google is, is, is, um, I suppose, putting the focus on people paying for adverts. That's one of their biggest revenue streams. In fact, seo has taken a bit of a hit because of the I suppose what you could say the real estate for those who are technical of you listening the real estate in the search engine results pages, engine results pages. So for john to then sort of make that pivot from getting paid traffic to using organic traffic, to to sort of uh, drive that traffic to his um, to his products, it's, it's nothing short of amazing. So, john, I have to give you massive credit. It's brilliant. I love this story really, do I appreciate that?

Speaker 2

38:57

yeah, it wasn't easy and um. And so I recently hired a business coach like a business agent coaching agency, let's say and I've got this like very successful CEO, and she basically holds my hand on a weekly call. She'll say, okay, you're doing this right, you're doing this wrong, you need to focus more here. And because I got to a million dollars revenue by sort of just trying to figure this stuff out, right, and when I told her at the beginning, she was like, ok, what are your numbers like, how big is your team and what do they do? And I was like I don't even have a list of my tasks. If I slip and book my head, the business is over. It's me. You know. Um, if I go to sleep and don't wake up for a week, you know my business is over, so it's um. So she was like holy crap, you know that's.

Speaker 2

39:49

It's like one percent of all global businesses never break the seven figure. Only one percent or something like that. Whatever, this is a very small percentage. So you're in the 1%, but now we need to get you some structures and processes and SOPs. So what I've done up until now to get here isn't normally the normal way you would get to seven figures, because I'm sort of got to seven figures despite all my shortcomings, but I figured it out anyway along the way. But now what I've done is just two weeks ago. I've hired three full-time employees and we're building out processes and all of those guys are doing things that one, I've always had to do myself and, two, all of the things that I should have been doing but I just didn't get around to. So they're going to be doing that full time for me, even when I sleep. So I think this year is going to be even better because I'm actually going to be, you know, striving for a lot more than what I've done up until now. So it's interesting very interesting.

Speaker 1

40:51

It's. To me it's more than interesting. It's. It's incredible, and I think it hasn't come easy. It has it's. It's like it's more than interesting, it's incredible and I think it hasn't come easy. It's like it's just that perseverance. I love that.

Speaker 1

41:01

But also another important point that John has raised as well is that and it's something that I struggled with when I first started my sort of entrepreneurial journey it was that I would always try to do everything myself and I kind of thought that that was the best way to do things and I didn't seek help and I didn't want to invest in coaching and sort of talking to people who knew just a bit more than me. But this is just a lesson where that can sort of um really pay dividends, because if you can, if you can, if you have the, the finance to invest in somebody who can take is you know, there's a couple of steps ahead of you, or you know a few steps ahead of you can just sort of really sort of um have an injection into your not just your confidence. An injection of confidence because you've got somebody by your side who knows what they're doing.

Investing in Coaching for Success

Speaker 2

41:54

But it can pay in real terms to your bottom line as well as it has with john, so yeah, yeah, I, I strongly, I strongly agree with that, because in the beginning, even up until about a year ago, I was the same because I wasn't making money. Uh, in the beginning I was losing money, then I was breaking even. Then I was making a small profit and the idea to spend like $200 to talk to somebody for an hour I was thinking there's no way that's going to be a good investment. That's just going to be somebody telling me what worked for them or whatever, and I found it really hard to invest in things like that. I figured that's just going to be $200 less on ad spend. I found it really, really hard to pay for things like that.

Speaker 2

42:40

And now, looking back, all of the times I took a massive leap forward was when I just found somebody that could do it better and I paid them for their time to teach me how to do it. And if I had to start all over again, the first would be to is to get a coach pay for coaching calls. Um, obviously, you know, not all coaches are made equal, but, um, dave, the coaches I've had have all you know have been, have all taught me something and that's they're all things that I would have taken me years to learn by myself, and I probably would have been out of business by then.

Speaker 1

43:16

So and how did you uh, like you said, not all coaches are made equal and there's so many again, there's rabbit holes where, where coaches are concerned, everybody's a coach these days, you know, and you've got coaches on youtube, you've got coaches on linkedin, you've got coaches everywhere here. They're everywhere. So if you're, uh, if you're seeking coaching, I mean again, were there any sort of steps that you took to select a coach? And also, how did you sort of overcome that sort of mental block in terms of investing in?

Speaker 2

43:46

coaching. I guess I got over the mental block when I started seeing that it was just I was getting a lot of knowledge, all of this. I started seeing things that I could actually do and take action today and I could see how that would work like a week from now, you know. So I've joined a couple of different courses on e-commerce. So I've joined a couple of different courses on e-commerce and a lot of the courses that I've taken have all stemmed from the course that we're both in now, whereas guys have sort of outgrown it and then they've become very successful e-commerce professionals and maybe they also have a course.

Speaker 2

44:33

There was one particular coach by the name of Corey who was a rock star. He's really humble. He doesn't go and advertise his course online because he's too busy running his five businesses online. He's extremely successful but you wouldn't know it because he's not out there like taking photographs sitting on the hoods of Lamborghinis or doing anything weird like that. He's just very low profile. He's just doing his thing and he's an SEO rock star. So I figured that's what I need to know. He has the knowledge. I'm going to just ask him how much it's going to cost me, and we agreed on like a 10 lesson, like sort of group of calls to save money.

Speaker 2

45:18

And it was good having follow-up calls because it was like okay, we've discussed something, we've got, I've got stuff to do, but sometimes I just don't follow through. I'm very good at making lists, but I never get to them and then the next, the next day, I make a, a new list, but with the same things on it. So when, when you have like a week when you have a call and then in a week later you've got another call, the second call is about okay, did you do what we discussed in the fourth call? So now we can move on to the next thing? So you have to do it. So you're somebody holding you accountable, of course.

Speaker 2

45:50

So, um, I work a lot better when there's somebody better than me paving the way or at least telling me where. At least it takes the guessing out of it, you know. So I got a coach for SEO, I got a coach for AdWords. At the time I reached out to like an affiliate, like a niche website coach, mentor guy, another guy that wasn't very pretentious, because I seem to I do attract those guys rather than the flashy guys, and I just kept picking up little bits of knowledge and applying them, and I could see results. And applying them, and I could see results. Um, and then I just decided, I mean, coaching is just the only way to go, really, because, yeah, you need somebody like that to just tell you that you're, even if they just say what you're doing is the right thing, at least you're not thinking am I going the wrong?

Speaker 1

46:47

direction you know, takes all the guesswork out of it no, definitely that, that reassurance and, like you said, that accountability, and I think that's why a lot of people give up, because they don't have that that person to to turn to and they make these lists but they they don't make their way through that, that list and it just sort of drags on until eventually they lose confidence and then they just give up. So, yeah, and you went. And another thing, another great characteristics I always like to talk about the characteristics of some of the best, not just entrepreneurs, but the best people in terms of working, working in remote businesses and remote work Is that that, being proactive in a sense, because you didn't just wait for a coach to fall in your lap you went and you went and found that that person and it's turning your business around, and it's your business, by the sounds of it, now is evolving into something completely different. What, what's? What are your plans now for the, for the, for the future?

Scaling E-Commerce Business for Success

Speaker 2

47:47

well, the plan was. So I well, I signed up for this um coaching program, okay, um, two months ago and it's basically it's like a 90-day sprint. At the beginning, they ask me these questions like where do you want to be 90 days from now? What are your, like, financial goals? What are your life goals? You know what do you want to be doing? And, um, we're 30 days left and you know, I think at the beginning, my, my answer was I need to be able to remove myself from the business because, you know, I'm the bottleneck right now. I do everything and if I don't do it, it doesn't happen, but there are things that I need to be doing that I just don't get to. I was working like 100 hours a week because I just figured I need to make it work. You know, four-hour work week was, uh, seems a bit ironic when you're work you know, for our work week was when you're chasing before our work week.

Speaker 2

48:37

You're doing 100 hours a week to make it happen, right? So basically it was okay. Well then it sounds like you just need to remove yourself in the business. So what does that look like? Identify all of the things that you do that you, that somebody else could be doing for you. What does that look like? And then that becomes like a job description. Then the job description becomes a hire and then that's a person that's taking like 30 of your day away from you, and then you've got more time and do that three times.

Speaker 2

49:06

I've got three employees. I've got like one guy doing customer service. I've got one girl. She's like a seo wizard and she's going to be optimizing my website, producing new content. And I've got one girl she's like a SEO wizard and she's going to be optimizing my website, producing new content. And I've got another guy in India who is great. He's also in the same program that we're doing, so he knows Ecom, he knows Shopify and he's doing a lot of the backlinking for me.

Speaker 2

49:41

All of the things that will. It's all of the grunt work that doesn't show for a very long time. Butulatively, it will have a very good effect. You know, overall, maybe a year from now, there are other things that I wouldn't be doing myself. So, all of those things together, I can. I can now use my free time to dream bigger. You know how do I take this one category, niche store to different demographics, different communities, or is there some way I can move sideways rather than deeper? So you know, because I can think of these bigger things now, like maybe it's just different marketing channels. So anything I can do to grow the number of visitors and sales is all of the stuff I like to spend my time thinking about, because that's where all the good ideas come from, not when I'm, you know, sending emails offering to write guest posts for people that don't reply to me.

Speaker 1

50:27

So so you've moved to the next level now, where you you're uh, you're not in the business anymore, you're, you're kind of in the process of moving away from the business. You're hiring people now, you're you know, do you see yourself as a ceo?

Speaker 2

50:42

and um, so I I don't see myself as a ceo, also because I don't know what. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now, basically because, um, my customer service guy is doing live chat, but I still have live chat open and I'm still looking at it. Um, I'm working on a blog post now, even though I've just hired somebody to do all my blog posting, um, so I haven't really figured out what that looks like yet, but I think that's going to be a couple of months down the road where, where you know, it's becomes a routine, where maybe I just check in with them every now and then and see how things are going, making sure things are working and things are moving along.

Speaker 1

51:18

But I'm not there yet, so I'm still trying to figure out what that is so, and if anybody I mean this is a bit of a selfish question because, uh, I'm I'm doing the same course as you did, so in a way, I suppose I I kind of gathered this through the conversation that we've had, but if anybody was looking to take this route because, again, people listening to this podcast, there's a mixture of people. There are those who are in that nine to five and looking for an avenue away from the nine to five, and there are those who are well, yeah, I suppose that's the main category, and there are those who are well, yeah, I suppose that's the main category. Is there any sort of recommendation you could give to those people in terms of an opportunity to escape the roles that they're?

Speaker 2

52:23

in sort of thing. I guess I would recommend people be cautious about quitting their job before it makes sense. You know just um, just because you know bills need to be paid. Uh, the initial. I think that the first steps would be to um educate you know, see what options are out there. Like is it if?

Speaker 2

52:48

If you, if you want to get into e-commerce, you know you have to realize that your phone's going to ring um, you need to know about the products. There is that customer service aspect. There are some interactions that need to happen. If that's absolutely not what you're into and you just want to grind away and not have a telephone number on a website, you could do something like niche websites, where you're just producing content full-time and you drive traffic and you you monetize the website either by linking to amazon or by putting ads on your website. There are lots of ways to monetize a website even without selling a product. So I guess it's just trying to narrow down what your best fit would be and when you identify what you think you could be good at or what you think you could do for a few years without getting fed up, then go about maybe educating yourself on how, how, that you know what that is, what's required to do it, what sort of skills you need, and then get started. Um, I guess. So it's really education.

Speaker 2

53:51

I've read a lot of books now. Um, I've read a lot of books now, I've read a lot of books. They start off with a four-hour workweek, but that was more of a mind shift thing for me, and then I got into more of the educational stuff like how to make digital marketing, seo books, advanced ecommerce and stuff like that. But it's really important that once you start absorbing all of that information, then you then go and apply it, because there are lots of people that are just consuming, consuming, consuming. But if you don't make that switch from consuming to implementation, you're just, you know, you're never going to, you're never going to make any money from that business that you didn't start. So, um, you know, I think if you can just educate yourself, learn a few new skills and, as you're learning them, implement them, even if your first attempt is pretty shitty, it just means that everything you learned along the way, your second attempt will be a lot easier and faster.

Speaker 1

54:47

Well, john, you answered that question a lot more eloquently than I asked it and you were spot on, thank you, thank you so much for that. So, yeah, I it's. It sounds great, and what I want to do is just wish you all the best, um, with, with, with your, with your venture. I'll be obviously keeping an eye on, on that. I'll, you know, be keeping track of what you're doing and maybe down the line, we can uh, have you back on the podcast to see how you're doing and what you're doing.

Speaker 2

55:14

Maybe you'll be, maybe you'll be coaching people um, well, I, um, I, I keep, I keep getting asked you know, uh, are you going to go into coaching, are you going to run a course, are you going to prepare your own course in that way? Because it's, it's pretty good money that way. But um, I just that's not what I want to do. You know, I, I like, I like talking about these things, but I'm not very good at taking money from people. I don't know it. Just it doesn't, it doesn't feel comfortable to me and there are way too many gurus out there.

Speaker 2

55:45

It just it gives people a bad name. So I don't know, yeah, that's not something I might. I think I'm going to do okay if, if this store really continues the way it's going and I'm able to just continuously, you know, remove myself from it, I wouldn't be against doing another store or doing something else. So I have like a diversified income, so maybe another money stream, whether that's like.

Speaker 2

56:12

Right now, I'm actually playing with the idea of having an affiliate website, because affiliate websites do not require any front information, you know, you don't need to talk to anybody and you can outsource it completely. And affiliate websites are like, they're valued at 30x the profit of the website, regardless of how much money you invest into it, whereas e-com stores are valued at 25 to 30 times your net monthly average income. So after all your expenses. So if you make $1,000 a month net, you could sell it for 30K, perhaps 25, 30k and each website. If you make $1,000 profit, even if it costs you $1 dollars on hiring a content, that that's not, that's not a problem, because it's only about the gross profit on a niche website. So you know, these are things I could just probably, you know, start adding on. You know it's extra, extra income and it's all uh, just to diversify a little bit. But we'll see. We'll see when, when we get there well.

Speaker 1

57:18

Either way, as I said, I'll be keeping track of what you're doing. I wanted to thank you for coming on the remote work life podcast and um. We'll hope to hear from you soon.

Speaker 2

57:27

Thank you, john yeah, it was great talking to you. Thanks for having me. No problem anytime.