Hello from Germany! - Post-Grad Survival to Fastlane Business?

[Kaizen502]

# Tell us who you are, where you're from (don't lie), and what brought you here.

I am 27 years old and will be 28 years in November. I am from Ulm, Germany and first heard about MJ and his first book TMF maybe 5 years ago.

The title sounded intriguing so I put it on my to-read list over at Goodreads. The book wasn't available here in Germany, so on one of my trips in the US in 2014, I tried to buy it at a Barnes & Nobles.

It wasn't available there either, so I got another book, which was the one by Ryan Blair. Afaik not close as good as TMF , but don't ask me for an honest opinion, because frankly I really can't remember any of the content in detail.

Anyway, lots of time passed and I graduated officially in March 2017 by finishing my Bachelor thesis (Economics).

Hooray! I made it finally.

I never really liked studying, but at least I have a backup plan, right?

Also, it was cheap compared to what people pay in the US for a formal education. A real bargain so to speak.

All the people I know went for a Master degree or got a job after countless internships and I am still committed to building a profitable business.

No question. FOMO is a constant companion voicing its doubt whenever I see my fellow students securing great positions as consultants and whatnot. Thanks to Social Media I can participate in their wonderful life especially and only the moments of their greatest achievements.

Okay, so to answer the initial question: I stumbled across a book review somewhere on the internet (one of those legacy systems MJ mentioned) followed the link to Amazon and finally bought it.

When I started reading it, I was instantly inspired to change and to better my situation. I literally devoured TMF and then UNSCRIPTED in a few weeks and wanted to smack myself in the face for not buying it earlier.

# My personal history of MMO and my current situation

This part is only to give you some info if you are interested in my personal history of making money online.

Okay,

I was half-orphaned when I was 7 years old, so we (my twin brother, my mom and me) were always short of money and my mom working at a supermarket stocking shelves and being a shopaholic buying everything that was discounted until her payday was gone, mental health problems and her being unemployed for most of the following years didn't help.

With the goal to make money fast (maybe it was also the attempt to make money easy) I had the shiny object syndrome for years.

I am sure that some of you can relate. I have tried blogging, affiliate marketing with brand domains, Kindle Self-Publishing, eCommerce, FBA and so on and so forth. I probably can't remember half of the ventures my desire led me into.

I started to jump on the FBA bandwagon in 2016 and got started with a limited capital of only 6,000 €. My first product was a drawstring bag I improved based on the reviews.

It took off after a short time, but after Chinese sellers started to undercut my pricing the sales tanked and I wasn't able to get rid of the last batch.

Today, I wouldn't import such a product anymore, since it's more of a fashion item plus the target audience is teenagers (hint: they mostly don't have their own money). I still have a few hundreds of drawstring bags at home, but at least I learned something here.

Some of those MMO attempts definitely had potential, but jumping from one thing to the next, hoping for success (as in an event) prevented me from reaching success along the process.

My t-shirt business was really the first thing I stuck to for longer than just a few months. I am earning a good junk of money since 2016. It's producing a net profit of between 6 and 10k € per month and is mostly passive...

which means I stopped adding new designs to have time assessing and adjusting my long-term goal(s).

Before reading TMF I stumbled across André Chaperon. He is a great internet marketer and writes great conversational emails.

Discovering him was actually the first step that taught me that there is more than coercion-based marketing with "gurus" that preach value, but in fact never really give any real value.

That was also when I learned first about the Strategy of Preeminence, which is coined by Jay Abraham. Mind-blowing stuff and I think in essence it's also what MJ tried to teach in TMF/UNSCRIPTED .

Becoming the fiduciary of your clients and giving value even before money has changed hands is the cornerstone of the strategy and renders your competition irrelevant.

Anyway, I digress and thought about sharing more here, but that's a story for another day I guess.

To get back to my current situation:

At the moment I am working part-time in the business of long-term car rentals. The owner is actually a good friend of mine who started several businesses after his apprenticeship (we have been together in the same class at the vocational school).

The job is good because I can save some extra cash, but it's also a distraction to my own ventures.


# Then, tell us where you hope to be someday (ie, your goals/long range plan), and how you plan to get there. If you're still working out the details, don't be afraid to say that. All of us adjust our PLANs and make changes as we go.

My long-term goal is to become independent/free. I am still working on a monthly number that could grant me freedom though.

My short-term targets are:

1. Use my design assets to scale the POD business: I am in the process of listing most of my designs on Amazon. I have a high-quality drop shipper based in Germany that ships out the products fast with neutral packaging and the option to add some branding down the line. I know that Amazon is a bit of a danger regarding the control commandment, but I see it only as a sales channel that can help to build my brand. If all of my products are listed then it should run on auto-pilot. Only returns and checking PPC ads are the tasks I am left with. Invoicing and all the other stuff is fully automated. I might even sell the business as a whole. Idk yet.

2. Building an Authority Site: I am in the process of building an authority site around a passionate niche. I am not passionate about the topic per sé so it is not a do-what-you-love-kinda thing here. I chose the topic because there are many products I can review and in the first step I want to build an affiliate site with helpful hands-on product reviews. The long-term goal is to saddle a private label brand on top of this project to be able to generate organic sales either on Amazon (FBA) or my own online shop. Again, I still believe Amazon is a great marketplace to launch a brand, but should not be the only sales channel. The topic is good because it is not technical and I can create the content myself with ease.

3. Network: This is difficult for me because most of my friends are Sidewalkers or Slowlaners. I would love to be able to meet up with some like-minded people. I also thought about moving to a digital nomad hotspot like Bali. I think the mindset would be similar and the cost of living could help saving more with a whole lot of affordable amenities. Also, leaving the predominant negativity that I experience in my current environment might help too.

I wanted to mention that both of the businesses are a good fit for my personality. I am an introvert and although I can be outgoing I just prefer doing work on my own.

The past months I was thinking of opportunities and businesses I can start to provide value for others. I saved up a bit of cash by living below my means and should be at around 150,000 € by the end of the year.

The list is quite long and I will have to assess them whenever I have some time. The thing is that I am bad at executing and good at brainstorming ideas. This is because most of the times in any business there is no direct feedback-loop at the beginning and overcoming hard times with no sales is necessary.

How do you keep yourself motivated during hard times with no obvious results (monetary)?

I try to apply the feedback-loop to other tasks. So writing content for my authority site I count every article and every written word as progress.

Whoever made it this far.

I hope it wasn't TMI and what I tried to convey was comprehensible.

Sorry, English isn't my first language, which is why my written thoughts sometimes feel tangled like spaghetti (Does that even make sense?).

Let me know if you have any recommendations or thoughts you want to share with me.

I would appreciate it highly.

 

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