Where do I start?
Well maybe I’ll start with what gave me this idea,
I was waiting to pick up my kids at school one day after work, I decided to have a quick look at the Facebook feed…
Some post come up about some show where they got successful businessmen put them in a random city with $100 and they claimed they could turn that $100 into 1 million dollars within 90 days. They weren’t allowed to use any of their contacts, wealth or name at any time. That show was called Undercover Billionaire. (Yeah sounds a bit cheesy doesn’t it)
To say I was intrigued, I had to know more about this
Now first up, I’m not one to believe everything I see on TV, but this concept was so incredibly fascinating I couldn’t but wonder is this even possible?
As soon as I got home I found the first series and watched the first episode, I was quite interested to see how a rich man would act and how he would deal with it when faced with a situation like this. It was an interesting scenario
It kind of inspired me in a way, I mean, in the past my younger self tried out all sorts of get rich quick schemes, online marketing and stuff with very little success.
Maybe I wasn’t putting in enough effort or just doing it wrong somehow but all the failures kind of disheartened me and I eventually gave up and moved on.
Now you see why I found it so fascinating
I can’t remember exactly what triggered it but I had a split second vision, there was a certain clarity to it that seemed to spark enough motivation for to begin writing this
I decided to change my perspective on life…
I figured if I just treat it like a real life video game…I can’t be too emotional about failures because its just a game right?
I was already experimenting with a few ecommerce ideas already but to be honest I had no clue what I was doing. I’m not sure what it was exactly, but there was something about putting myself out there that scared the absolute shit out of me.
So another day whilst I was waiting to pickup my kids from school after work, I had about 45 minutes to use so I was searching for a better way to market my attempts at an ecommerce store,
I came across an inspiring video, looking back now, It was actually part of the beginning of a funnel, but that didn’t matter as It sparked my mind to a new possibility I never thought about before.
The video was talking about building a lead generation business.
Now I have no marketing experience at all. Although I did have a keen interest in Music production and I had a brief period where I was trying to sell my music through a WordPress website I learned how to build myself. (That’s a story for another day)
All my past experience was construction type work, I used to go to work with my Dad on weekends when I was still in school, he owned a Paving and Landscaping Business. I started a Carpentry Apprenticeship when I was fresh out of school, worked on building sites for years, did all sorts of work, metal roofing, concreting, plumbing, excavation, etc, After that I operated in my own Bobcat and Tipper Hire business.
But the problem was, It seemed no matter how hard I worked I couldn’t get ahead.
It quickly became depressing, doing the same thing everyday, getting up early, driving a fully loaded slow truck 1.5 hrs fighting the the exhausting Sydney traffic to get to the job, then spend 8-10 hours in the machine and then load it all back up and drive back which sometimes took up to 2 hours because of the traffic.
Then do it all again the next day.
Operating Bobcats and Excavators was fun for me, but doing it everyday made it seem monotonous and tiring. It all eventually come to crunch when one year I went to register my truck and It got rejected at the safety inspection. Yeah my truck was old, It was a 1980’s Isuzu SBR, but she was extremely reliable mechanically, she never let me down. The problem was the rust in the body was becoming too much, I frantically tried to fix what I could but a lack of experience and money was becoming too much, and it was beginning to kill my motivation.
I knew I had to figure out something fast.
Fast forward a few years, after a stint of homelessness (another story for another day) I had to sell the truck with some of my equipment.
A FEW YEARS LATER
Next thing I know I’m working at a job in a sign factory running a room full filled with Wide Format Printers. Basically they are just huge printers that can print up to 3000mm wide on 50 metre long rolls of vinyl, mesh, sticker sheets, car wraps, paper and PET material, basically any type of signage used for advertising in various markets. We do a lot of signs for Real Estates and Building companies and also other sign writers.
It’s a 24hr production line too, sometimes we can average around a few hundred jobs per day so it ends up becoming quite stressful on my part, they seem to hire a lot of inexperienced people, in the artwork department and also on the finishing and packing floor which means a lot of mistakes are made. As a result I spend my days reprinting a lot of the jobs I had already completed earlier that day as well as making sure all of the other jobs due for that day were completed by the end of my shift.
It’s extremely monotonous. My rent is high, I have a family to provide for and my pay is low. I need to find another way to survive. This is what brings me to that day after work I was waiting outside the school waiting to pick my kids up,
I found the video talking about lead generation, at first I was looking at it from the perspective of gaining the skills to generate my own leads for my ecommerce ventures I had going at the time. I don’t know what it was but I signed up out of excitement or something, and I happened to do something I would usually never think about doing,
I ended up booking a call with the guy in the video, he called himself a digital marketing lead generation specialist. This call opened up my eyes to some opportunities I never thought of. Although I could see the potential in the lead gen model, I have no experience whatsoever.
I spent the long weekend researching this model.
I came across the youtuber known as Thomas Gonnett, he has some really raw videos showing how he does his cold calls. That gave me a different insight on things also. I kept searching… I then found all the other lead gen guys such as Paul James, Dan Wardrope and Ippei. The entire idea was seemingly viable enough. I thought why not…
By this time I was watching the next series of Undercover Billionaire, The Grant Cardone episodes. Now he is an extremely interesting guy, He has a certain energy I can’t describe.
(SPOILER ALERT)
He ended up building one worth 5.5 million.
It was eye raising, although I don’t believe what I see on TV, I believe the concept behind the business is real. Although from my research at the time of writing It appears the business is still operating to this day..
But let’s just assume for a moment that It could be real, What an amazing achievement.
Next thing I knew, I was building out a website, Using WordPress of course. Because of my past experience in the building industry I decided to choose the landscaping niche…
