Financial Independence Journey

[nradam123]

Whats going on brothers?

I have introduced myself in this thread : https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/from-the-east.66859/

I am so happy to see a place where i can post my progress, I already write a daily journal for myself but its great to get feedback from people as well.

Little about me. I am 25 from India. And I quit my job with 4 months of savings and a slow selling Private labelled business. I am not able to buy more inventory for my private labelled business so i would rather let it sell slowly. I need to jump into something else, i am interested in online business because I am internet savvy. And it also will allow me to have more freedom.

Now I have been working for past 5 months from home and i did not make any money. I am super depressed about this, but i am going to keep the hustle.

Thats why I will make a progress journal here. I will update once in a few days.

I hope this thread will expand into a story that people would share one day

Regards
Adam

 

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[nradam123]

What Did I do Today?

1) FIVERR GIG
Yesterday I read this article about making Fiverr gigs in this forum: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...with-less-than-1-30-hour-of-daily-work.66088/
So I went ahead and made one gig. It took me 5 hours to make the gig including making a video. I recorded myself in my smartphone, did some Audacity audio editing, made a quick video in Sony Vegas with subtitles (My accent is not very good) and uploaded in Fiverr. The gig is active but the video is still waiting moderation.

2) COLD CALL
I am SCARED of cold calling. I only made 6 cold calls (I got number from Yellow Pages) mostly because of mental masturbation. 5 rejection and one polite conversation which can be a lead after 2 months.

What am i going to do?

• Now, I am going to make 4 more gigs. Hopefully I can make this faster because i have the know how from making it once.
• Now, I am going to practice one script.
• I have to make at least 15 phone calls tomorrow. (Try to make it fun. Play games like call without thinking, multiple calls with 30 seconds gap max .etc)
• Collect 50 numbers from a different source (Maybe OLX)
• Read a few more golden threads here.

My goal right now is to build this service based business up enough to

• Get financially independent before my 26 birthday on August 20.
• Pay my rent and make sure that my parents are happy (I can send them money and such).
• Let my brother handle it (He is sick of his 9/5 as well)
• Get a ton of experience and learn a lot.
• Have a revenue stream.
• Gateway to other ventures.

I am very emotional with this business thing now due to lack of success. I am hopefully going to find points for implementation in this forum.

 

[odihost]

How many hours did you spend a day for this?

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[nradam123]

How many hours did you spend a day for this?

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To make the Fiverr post it took me 5 hours. It can be a lot faster next time. Tonight i will try to do it faster.

 

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[odihost]

I mean how much effort do you spend dailly for this business? Or total hours spent for this business?

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[nradam123]

I mean how much effort do you spend dailly for this business? Or total hours spent for this business?

Sent from my Lenovo S660 using Tapatalk

The private labelled business is dying a slow death. I have 20 minutes work a day for sticking invoice. The system is fully setup (The product is tested, imported, packed, labelled, already listed in my website+marketplaces, courier guys will pickup at my home) so all the work was done an year ago.

Now my only work is to print the invoice and address and stick it on the product. Then to wait for courier guys to pick the stuff.

Sales are not great, and i don't have funds to refill inventory or do marketing. Sob.

 

[nradam123]

What did I do past 2 days?

1) Analyzed my Instagram account - I just hit over a 1000 followers. I used a shady method of following and unfollowing followers of similar niche profiles to get most of these followers. THE METHOD DOES WORK. And the engagement is great as well. But i just feel that i am not truly caring for my viewers when i spend all my time following and unfollowing. So for the past one week I stopped that process and I am trying to just post good contents. Went up by 70 followers in the last 7 days. Also trying to get people for share for share. I also made a new style for my IG posts which looks memorable.

2) Made an Evernote account to write down things I am learning everyday - I will be also curate these contents once i start writing contents for my blog. I wrote a few articles that i read in this forum in Evernote as well. I have clipped two golden articles that i read in TFF (The fastlane forum) in evernote on the topics Fiverr gig and Instagram Domination. Both are going to be put to action asap.

3) Made Fiverr Gigs - I wanted to make 7. But i have only made 2 as yet. This was mainly because i am not able to find what are the best gigs to make because i am new to it. Finally made two which looks like they have demand.

4) Made my friends buy a few Fiverr gigs - This is the cheap method of giveaways, the one you do if you have no money. I have been successful in making initial sales in Flipkart and Amazon with this technique. Since i made sure that my product is outstanding I DO NOT THINK THIS METHOD IS SHADY. It just gets you some momentum and keeps you somewhat higher in the search results. I hope i will get organic sales once i make 15 of my friends buy my gig (In 3 days). This will also give me a Level 1 seller ranking in Fiverr. Lets see.

What am i going to do?
1) Make 5 more gigs in Fiverr.
2) Get 13 more sales in Fiverr through friends.
3) Make one free product to use as email optin for Instagram.
Routine works - Make more IG pictures (Upload, Comment .etc)
Implement more things from Evernote articles
Read articles in this forum. Start reading Millionaire Fastlane book.
Get back into cold calling (I stopped that game since last post. I have to put 3 hours everyday to sharpen that skill)

On to work.

 

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[Gravy South]

Hmm if I have one advice to give is that you should just FOCUS on one thing at a time.

Not sure what kind of business you try to create, but you seem to be reading the gold threads on the forum, and pick out the ones in which a forum member has been very successful in making tons of money, and you thought to yourself that you want a piece of that cake as well.

Maybe you need to think about why your private label business is dying and focus on turning it around.


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[nradam123]

Hmm if I have one advice to give is that you should just FOCUS on one thing at a time.

Not sure what kind of business you try to create, but you seem to be reading the gold threads on the forum, and pick out the ones in which a forum member has been very successful in making tons of money, and you thought to yourself that you want a piece of that cake as well.

Maybe you need to think about why your private label business is dying and focus on turning it around.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Completely agree. I need to FOCUS.
But my situation is i have no money to buy inventory and I was trying to get another business up and running for 5 months now. Still i made zero dollars out of it. My rent money is getting over and i need to either go back to a job or make some money.

Thats why i began cold calling to get clients. Still no success.
Then i tried craigslist. Still no success.
Then i saw Fiverr and i have experience selling in marketplaces. So i am trying this out.

I am highly optimistic about this endeavor. If this also fails i need to do something to pay my rent. Maybe work under someone, i dunno. Hard life man. I don't even want to cry because that wont help me haha.

 

[nradam123]

What did i do past 7 days?
I got around 7 sales in Fiverr through friends.
I made another instagram account on fashion, health and fitness.
I made a photoshop gig as well in Fiverr.
Total Money Made - ZERO

I am super scared right now. Need to make some sales this week.

Plans for this week -
1) FOCUS
2) Focus on two instagram accounts properly (This is for the long term)
3) Make sales in Fiverr somehow.

Peace

 

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[nradam123]

What happened in last 6 days?

• Did not make even one sale in Fiverr even now.
• I only worked for less than 5 hours a day on most of these days because I had to deal with a law suit of my family. I will be busy with this for the next few days as well. How do i manage business when other things pop up?
• Removed full focus from my Instagram channel 2. It was just taking away my time.
• Exploring different gigs in Fiverr. Learned a lot of PhotoShop and now i am going to offer ebook covers, cartoon drawing .etc as service in Fiverr.
• Really confused about the Future and whether i am doing everything wrong. Re-read parts of "The Power of Now" so that i will only focus on the now.
• Total money made - ZERO

Plans for this week -

• Make the following gigs in Fiverr - ebook covers, 3D mockup.
• Refine all the gigs including - WordPress, cartoon
• Sell gigs and make at least 5 dollars.
• Try to work 10-15 hours a day.
• Automate my Instagram channel 1.
• Make atleast one article for my blog.

Time to FOCUS.

 

[Mikkel]

You seem to be a bit scattered all over the place. Try to focus on one thing. If that's Fivver then concentrate on ONE gig. People make money in just about every niche there, you just need to get your foot in the door.
As MJ says, those that chase money elude them. So instead of trying to make a couple of dollars, try to provide genuine value instead. If you are doing 3D design, create a free Logo for someone. If they like it, they will give you a review and maybe tell someone else. Offer people something of value, even if that value may be more than $5.

In my opinion, you need to cut out all the noise. Don't jump around to all these new endeavors/gigs. Just stick with one and get good at it. Grind and do what ever it takes to get 5 organic job inquiries a day. That should be your first goal.

 

[nradam123]

You seem to be a bit scattered all over the place. Try to focus on one thing. If that's Fivver then concentrate on ONE gig. People make money in just about every niche there, you just need to get your foot in the door.
As MJ says, those that chase money elude them. So instead of trying to make a couple of dollars, try to provide genuine value instead. If you are doing 3D design, create a free Logo for someone. If they like it, they will give you a review and maybe tell someone else. Offer people something of value, even if that value may be more than $5.

In my opinion, you need to cut out all the noise. Don't jump around to all these new endeavors/gigs. Just stick with one and get good at it. Grind and do what ever it takes to get 5 organic job inquiries a day. That should be your first goal.

I know I am scattered. Thanks for confirming it. I will work on it, thanks brother.

 

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[nradam123]

What happened last 3 days?
I got one sale in Fiverr. Money earned 8$ after commission

Total Money Made - 8$


Its not much at all. But its definitely a start. My batteries are little bit recharged now. Going to get to more work

 

[nradam123]

What happened last 3 days?
I got one tip in Fiverr because i helped my earlier buyer to solve a hard problem. Money earned 4$ after commission.

Total Money Made - 12$


1 am trying to use things i learned with my earlier business here. The reason why my facebook ad converted earlier was due to a kickass video of my product, so I am making a really kickass video for my new Fiverr gig. Also I am going to market based on some Youtube videos i saw. That is my planned work for the next few days.

 

[nradam123]

What happened last 5 days?
In the earlier post I told I am making a kickass video for promotion. I made that video and uploaded it in Fiverr as well as Youtube. Youtube view count is 9 haha atm. But I will let it stay there for a while and get some organic traffic if it happens.

Made a $5 sale to my first buyer. He is giving me small repeated works.
I started giving offers to available projects in Fiverr. Got some orders through that!
Made a $10 sale which is completed.
Made a $40 sale from the same person (This required some talking through messages. I gave her a different option than the one she asked for and asked money for the same. She was a nice lady and she complied)
Made a $100 sale from another person. This order is to be delivered in 6 days and I have to actually LEARN SO MUCH to finish it. So I am on learning mode now. I think its all part of the process!!

Total Money Made - $24
Total Money Made (Including Pending) - $136
- I am like the happiest person on earth right now
I also became a level 1 seller.

Upcoming Plan

• Give 10 offers everyday.
• Learn stuff and deliver the orders as well.
• Promote the YouTube videos by posting it a bit around comments.
• Make one youtube video to start my YouTube Channel for my Fiverr business. I will probably explain some feature in PhotoShop in the video.

 

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[nradam123]

I forgot to mention.
1) I need 50 orders by around June 12 to become a LEVEL 2 Seller.
Present - 2/50 Orders.
AND
2) I am making tons of Fiverr notes in Evernote. And I am making notes from Urdu language videos (Which is a language I understand because I am from India).
There are lot of Urdu videos about Fiverr in YouTube because in Pakistan and North India Fiverr seems to be a BIG thing. Some Top selling gigs are from there. If I find some golden nuggets of information from the Urdu videos I will share it here. I have to start giving value to people so I cant wait to give out cool information

 

[nradam123]

What happened in the last 10 days

• My Fiverr account is disabled - https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...arning-experience-or-is-it-just-unfair.67497/
• I lost all the money i made in Fiverr. I can reclaim $48 after 45 days.
• $140 is cancelled by Fiverr.
• The reason for disabling my account is unknown to me. I initially asked them in a very rude way and they blocked me in Facebook, Twitter and they never replied to my email.
• I felt like giving up on Fiverr
• I luckily knew email of two of my buyers whose orders were cancelled. Buyer one has a $100 order with me and buyer two has a $40 order.
• Buyer 1 replied and i completed the job for him.
• Buyer 2 never replied.
• I made a new Fiverr account and Buyer 1 paid me again. He is a nice guy. The reason why he wanted to pay in Fiverr again is because his money was also held by Fiverr in the online wallet.
• Buyer 1 liked my work and gave me another work. I will do this work for him in 4 days and get paid in Paypal. I need that money fast for rent and stuff, cant give a cut to Fiverr haha.
• I again started giving custom offers (10 a day) in Fiverr. Started getting enquiries.
• I contacted an old client through messages in Fiverr who was very happy with me. He said he has a small gig for me, lets see.
• Buyer 2 is still thrown to the ether. Her full website i made for he is still with me. Will she ever reply? She was a good lady and needed my help.
• I gave an email to Fiverr asking for reason for disabling my account in a kind and pleasant way. They replied saying they will enquire with Trust and Safety team and let me know. Lets see.

Lessons learned -

• Pull money to bank account very often in Fiver. Do not keep money in Fiverr account.
• Do not contact customer support in a disrespectful way. Talk to them nicely if you do not want to get banned and want a useful reply.
• Do not ever give up. Small problems like this are actually lessons to see how tough I am. Learn from those lessons.

Total Money Made (Pending) - $80
Total Money Made (In my bank account) - ZERO

Upcoming Plan -

• Learn theme development properly in WordPress
• Give custom offers (10 everyday)
• I got the book "Conquering Fiverr" by Damien from this forum. It costed $15. Execute the book.
• Deliver the pending orders ASAP
• Make a website for my business as suggested by Square1Hype from this forum
• Make $500 this month somehow. Thats my goal of May 2016. I want to be financially independent before August 20, my 26th birthday.
• Implement other Fiverr tactics. Take it to next level.

 

[Guest3722A]

Pull money to bank account very often in Fiver. Do not keep money in Fiverr account

Very important lesson here. Whether Fiverr, PayPal or any account that collects YOUR EARNED money. Move it fast and consider moving it twice too, because some accounts can reverse a withdrawal. Stay in control!!

 

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[nradam123]

I got banned again in Fiverr.



The reason they told is wrong because in the new account I made I only have 1 buyer. This buyer was so happy with my work that he gave me a new order. They stooped to a level where they lie about talking to Trust and Safety team.

I know that most people are happy with Fiverr. But for me this is the end of it.
I literally spent 200 hours delivering orders in Fiverr. I made around $200. And all the money is with Fiverr itself.

Now this is what i am going to do from now on

I am going ALL IN.
I am literally F*cking going all in.
I am going to work 14 hours a day.
I am sick of spending past 7 months jobless. I can easily get a job if i want. I am literally poor for doing my own thing. Its the choice i made.
Now I am going to pay for it. Gladly.
I have a new plan worked out and I am going to execute.

This is it.

 

[nradam123]

Allright. I made this thread - https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/i-am-going-all-in.67643/
Got a lot of good advices. I am implementing the idea to have weekly goals.

STRATEGY - (WEEK 1 - 27/4 to 3/5)

1. Finish order.
2. Start UpWork account. Make sure that I do not go against the TOS of UpWork. Start at
3. Finish Week 1 of Freelance course (Follow a system that works when you start out. Freestyle later)
4. Spent time learning
   1. Step 1 - Learn WordPress 101
   2. Step 2 - Learn advanced Theme Building
   3. Build my Website. The website must be EYE POPPING.
   4. Build atleast 6 designs each. The designs must be MESMERIZING
5. BONUS - Read the Damiens Fiverr course in the leisure time.

~~~ I have a feeling that WEEK 1 is overkill. I will call it a success if i complete 50% of it~~~~

What did i do last 3 days?
Delivered an order through PayPal. Made $100.
Got a Freelance course that looks like what I can use to implement. Started Week 1.
Learning WordPress theme development.

Total Money Made (To be Reclaimed after 45 days from Fiverr) - $128
Total Money Made (Pending) - $228
Total Money Made (In bank account) - Zero

I read a thread here that you should not tell how much money you are making. I dont think that rule applies to pennies though haha. Maybe I will make "total money made" private if things blow up

 

[nradam123]

I just thought I will mention what course I am using now to master WordPress theme development.
If you search online you will find that you should use Lynda, Treehouse .etc and most of the are paid service. And to tell the truth, they are not the best. I have taken AdWords course in Udemy to only find that its explaining the structure of AdWords Dashboard lol. Some courses do not feel complete even though they are paid. And most of all, if you are a beginner you sometimes do not want to spend money on something just when you start out. You want to learn for free.

Anyway check out this channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbmBY_XYZqCa2G0XmFA7ZWg

This YouTube channel have amazing courses on WordPress theme development. Check out there playlist, simply its the best channel I found and its free!

 

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[nradam123]

This is a good video for App Development. I like that the answer focuses on the rough process and not the exact steps. Which is awesome.
I am keeping it here as a reminder. Basically the video tells the following things about learning App Development -

• It will take an year of spending half hour to a hour of working a day.
• Go out and meet people. See if they want apps made. Do the first job for free, second for $50, third for $200, fourth for $400 and then for $800 .etc. I think what he mentions is Freelancing. Freelancing is a great way to master a craft and get paid for it as well then!
• Try to look around and see if i can solve that problem by using a smartphone. Thats awesome. I always had programming skills but I did not leverage it enough because I became a Mechanical Engineer. Now I think I am going back to what I am good at, purely logical problem solving.

Another Update - I read the AMA by Noah Kagan of Appsumo here. I will write a few things I learned there -

What will you do if you were 22?
I'd do a few things at 22.

1- Go work for free with people living the lives you want to live

2- Go help 1 person for free or paid today. Don't read anymore.

3- That's it.

How do you validate?
For validating any business, it's really simple but people WANT to believe its more complicated so they can avoid starting.
Here's the formulae: (yes, I'm using the British version to sound fancy)
1- What's the problem you are actually solving?
2- Who's the customer that has that?

What metric do you use?
I look for 3 paying customers within 48 hours.
If it takes any longer than that it'll only get harder.

You break down anything to those 2 elements and you have a business.

I am still working on the Freelance at UpWork and WordPress theme development learning in the past few days.

 

[nradam123]

I am still implementing weekly goals. I am a little late to update here, I am updating in my personal evernote mostly.

I completed 37.5% of my WEEK 1 Strategy. I worked really hard but that was so much work that it not humanly possible to complete it alone.
I was living in my hometown last week with my parents. Today, I moved back to Bangalore.

STRATEGY - (WEEK 2 - 4/5 to 10/5)

1. Start working on Freelance website.
2. Finish Week 1 and 2 of Freelance course
3. Do 2 videos a day to master Advanced WordPress theme building
4. Read the Damiens Fiverr course in the leisure time.
5. Build my personal business website

What did i do last 7 days?

• Learning WordPress theme development. Finished basic lesson and now I am learning advanced theme building and SASS. (I want to master WordPress by around July 8. I am going to put 2-3 hours a day to learn coding)
• Started focusing on only the Freelance Course.

My Goal for MAY - Make $500 (Total money made will become $728)

Total Money Made (To be Reclaimed after 45 days from Fiverr) - $128
Total Money Made (Pending) - $228
Total Money Made (In bank account) - Zero

Will update soon.

 

[nradam123]

Its been almost two weeks since I last updated. Which means i skipped week 3 of progress here.

What did i do last 14 days? -
1) Built my landing page
2) Reached Week 4 of Freelance course
3) Learned Sass, a cool tool to do CSS
4) Learned some advanced theme building (My basic is not so concrete I will start practicing basic theme building as well)
5) Made an account in Freelance.com (This is because UpWork did not let me in, wtf)
6) Started interviewing entrepreneurs. Approached 3 businesses as yet.

Did not make any new sale buy cashed my old sale from PayPal to bank account.

Total Money Made (To be Reclaimed after 45 days from Fiverr) - $128
Total Money Made (Pending) - $128
Total Money Made (In bank account) - $95

I am using Trello from https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...th-the-system-legendary-fastlaners-use.67028/ to deal with things from Week 4. It looks to be a more organized approach.

STRATEGY - (WEEK 4 - 18/5 to 24/5)
1) Start sales according to Freelance course, need to hit $500 of sales by end of Week 5 (Hopefully cashed into PayPal)
2) Go for one entrepreneurship club event this weekend.
3) Get atleast one interview done (This is for my own knowledge)

Thats pretty much my only goal.

Peace

 

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[nradam123]

Trying to make sale in my own website today. Trying hard.
I feel a lot more organized because I started using Trello.

Anyway I though I will share what I saw in a Tai Lopez video today. He said these are 3 things that top entrepreneurs implement -

1) Marketing trumps all. Apple beated Microsoft in terms of revenue only due to marketing. Marketing is packaging. Having a good product is not enough, you must be EXTREMELY skilled in marketing.

2) You gotta have a team. The minimum viable size is 10 people. Solo entrepreneur is a myth. Even Bill gates said he never did anything alone, he had Paul Allen and Steve Balmer. You do not need 10 people today but you have to move towards that goal fast.
The power that come from specialization is insane and you cannot be extremely skilled in technology, inventory, product, finance, marketing .etc. Top entrepreneurs always put together a team.

3) Understanding the fazing cycle of raising capital. Most people raise capital at the very beginning of a business. That is not how the game goes. You tend to get lazy when you get capital early. Its much better to create a business that has momentum and is beginning to rock and roll. You will waste all the money othewise. An exception is maybe if you are an experienced entrepreneur or if you are starting a capital intensive business. Capital slows you down.


BONUS: Don't procrastinate man, its the killer of dreams.

Peace

 

[nradam123]

Just a little update. I made a process to send personalized proposals faster. This is awesome. I will write a little more detailed progress thread here if it works. This month was not good in terms of money generated but i am staying away from Fiverr, UpWork .etc as I dont want to be stuck in a box at this early stage of business.

 

[nradam123]

Update.
A lot of failure trying to find clients. I am still staying away from UpWork because I dont like the way it works.

Failed niche 1 (Dentists)
Failed niche 2 (Dancers)

I think the reason for failure is that I am approaching people who dont need my service. I think the key is to approach people who clearly needs my service. Random approach for me has a response rate of 0.1%. Which means that I will have to make 1000 approaches to get 1 lead. And it takes me 30 minutes to write a solid proposal. So it will take me 500 hours to get a lead with my current approach.

Sounds like failure.

My approach for this week is to find people interested and interact with them. Need to tweak the process that does not work.

What is Working -
1) Time Management using Trello and a little SaaS I made for myself. Might share it one day.
Also I am reading books and coding everyday. Talking to my friend every week on Skype once to keep the hustle.

What is NOT Working -
1) Sending proposals to random people. They dont want my website or already have people handling it.

Goal for the week -
1) Make 2 pending website orders. Make another website go live (This one is free)
2) Increase my website traffic atleast a little bit.
3) Contribute a lot online where people who want my service are lurking around.
4) Measure everything. What you measure will improve.

Made one sale without direct marketing effort. Job is on for $500.

Total Money Made (Pending) - $628
Total Money Made (Transferred) - $95

 

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[silvertone_88]

There's an excellent book I think could help you. It's called "The 10X Rule" by Grant Cardone. It will shift your perspective on success and have you going above and beyond the effort you are putting in now. I understand reading a book is a time commitment and not a quick fix but I feel like it would help your business ventures flourish.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[nradam123]

There's an excellent book I think could help you. It's called "The 10X Rule" by Grant Cardone. It will shift your perspective on success and have you going above and beyond the effort you are putting in now. I understand reading a book is a time commitment and not a quick fix but I feel like it would help your business ventures flourish.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I read a book everyday for an hour. Its never a waste of time.
Currently reading Power Vs Force but I will keep the Grand Cardone book in mind.