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BlokeInProgress

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My journey so far has been all about learning, realization and strength builder.

It all started when...
When I started out my journey, I had a decent 8-5 job which later became 7-5 (10hrs) to make the company more attractive 'coz we offer 9 solid hours of IT services compared to match the competition. Have some passive income from investments (farming, poultry and mushroom) which pays around 5-10% per month. Some savings in the bank that is ready for business and a drive to quit the corporate life and start with a business partner and mentor. The time came when I had about 6 months of living income (for basic needs - shelter, food, clothing, elect and transportation) saved up so I decided to take the plunge and quit my job mid 2014.

I had a business partner and we started 2 businesses (hardware supplier and catering services) but unfortunately both tumbled as fast as we started it (start Oct 2014 - ended Dec 2014), I lost all of my savings, and up to now, still paying my investors back their money and the interest I owe them. My farming, poultry and mushroom investments also took a huge beating when storm hit us bad a couple of times plus some unfortunate event during the collection of payments happened so in other words, I lost everything.

Lesson learned:
Do your due diligence more than you're comfortable with.

Looking back, I can see that I trusted too much, relied on someone else's judgement and didn't gave attention to my gut when it was telling me something is wrong!

And here I am now...
It was just like a dream, when I woke up someday I was back in the corporate world. I tried sales doing cold calling but I realized, that style wasn't for me so I went back in the IT world so I can pay my dues faster, bring my savings back and have some cash available to start another business.This time I'm doing online business with my girlfriend who also enjoys the niche that I was aiming.

The progress so far...
Apologies if I can only share little for now as I am just beginning this road. Soon, I am looking to contribute a lot, help a lot and share a lot, let this be the beginning.

One thing I learned before was to take advantage of expired domains that already has traffic. I found one domain name related to my niche, waited for the bidding to expire and bought it at a lower price (also used a voucher to get the other add-on for free).

Last week, me and my gf started an IG account and posted pics and videos that we own. I used Instagress to do only likes and after a week we have almost 400 followers. :D

Thanks to @JimD who started the thread for Instagram Marketing. To @Mikkel who has been continuously sharing his knowledge about IG. @Andy Black adwords knowledge thread.

Next on the list is Website and Facebook Page creation. So far, I hired a good researcher and writer at Fiverr.com (doing 2 articles) and in parallel, I also wrote one article and planning to keep on writing until I reach 10 articles before launching my site.

More of the progress next week. Excited to contribute more!

EDIT: Tagged correct person
 
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kkompoti

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Have some passive income from investments (farming, poultry and mushroom) which pays around 5-10% per month.

can you please give me an insight on the above?
have you thought that this could be your way for a substancial income source?

My farming, poultry and mushroom investments also took a huge beating when storm hit us bad a couple of times plus some unfortunate event during the collection of payments happened so in other words, I lost everything.

what happened with the collection of payments?

i ask the above as i have some farming side venture too ,that i want to enlarge it
 

BlokeInProgress

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can you please give me an insight on the above?
have you thought that this could be your way for a substancial income source?

what happened with the collection of payments?

i ask the above as i have some farming side venture too ,that i want to enlarge it

It was actually a good source of passive income but one thing I learned is that when business partners starts expanding in areas they don't know yet (without due diligence), that's when the downfall starts. The Farming and mushroom business I invested in started looking into other markets and started marketing other products aside from what we have. Most of the investor cash was re-invested in these other products.

Here in our place, big companies outsource poultry and farming. As long as you can deliver their demands, they keep coming back to you. So I really believe that being a supplier really is a good source of income.

Collection of payments here, trust is still a big thing...the way that the business was set-up was there were middlemen and these middlemen suddenly started to pocket the collections and then disappear.
 

fhs8

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I think that you're making yet another big mistake by taking on a business partner (in this case your gf) but it could be anyone. 95% of the time the partner will just be less beneficial to you than if you were to do it yourself.

The fact that you started 2 businesses at the same time such as a hardware business and catering business and had them running for just 3 short months before shutting them down and getting deep in debt just shows that you didn't know the basics of business. Did you learn from every single mistake made? Going BK in 90 days just shows that there was almost no planning whatsoever and there was absolutely not enough cash for 2 businesses.

Did the farming and mushroom business get crop insurance? Why in the world did you not research who you were doing business with? If the crop business didn't get a collection of payment then why didn't they file a lawsuit? I'm guessing that they didn't even know the identity of the people they were doing business with?

Expired domain traffic is worthless and shouldn't be considered. There's tons of bots that artificially give traffic. People will do it so they can sell the domain for $$$. Basically expired domains don't get any traffic.

Instagram followers don't mean much. I have no idea why so much time was wasted on getting IG followers. It's overwhelmingly likely that IG will give you very little returns but there are exceptions.

Articles also will have very little impact. Nobody reads articles and it will likely be a big turnoff and cause people to leave. People don't like to read long articles if you're selling something.

Your priorities are messed up. I would launch the website now before working on any articles. If your website was up today then you'd know
 
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BlokeInProgress

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I think that you're making yet another big mistake by taking on a business partner (in this case your gf) but it could be anyone. 95% of the time the partner will just be less beneficial to you than if you were to do it yourself.

The fact that you started 2 businesses at the same time such as a hardware business and catering business and had them running for just 3 short months before shutting them down and getting deep in debt just shows that you didn't know the basics of business. Did you learn from every single mistake made? Going BK in 90 days just shows that there was almost no planning whatsoever and there was absolutely not enough cash for 2 businesses.

Did the farming and mushroom business get crop insurance? Why in the world did you not research who you were doing business with? If the crop business didn't get a collection of payment then why didn't they file a lawsuit? I'm guessing that they didn't even know the identity of the people they were doing business with?

Expired domain traffic is worthless and shouldn't be considered. There's tons of bots that artificially give traffic. People will do it so they can sell the domain for $$$. Basically expired domains don't get any traffic.

Instagram followers don't mean much. I have no idea why so much time was wasted on getting IG followers. It's overwhelmingly likely that IG will give you very little returns but there are exceptions.

Articles also will have very little impact. Nobody reads articles and it will likely be a big turnoff and cause people to leave. People don't like to read long articles if you're selling something.

Your priorities are messed up. I would launch the website now before working on any articles. If your website was up today then you'd know

hey thanks for replying and taking much time giving feedback and opinion. i really appreciate people who do guve advises and their own view. i can only say that lack of due diligence was the cause of my failures before. Probably immaturity also plays a role but I have no excuses with that and I accept it as a tuition fee and learning.

I guess we do have a different priority, I know its not an excuse but I am tied up with corporate life right now and from what I have looked at, assessed and researched and time I can only do so little right now and going online is my way of contributing value to others and building my business the same way.
 

Mikkel

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Instagram followers don't mean much. I have no idea why so much time was wasted on getting IG followers. It's overwhelmingly likely that IG will give you very little returns but there are exceptions.
Instagram works if done correctly. It might not give you incredible returns, but if you even get 10% of your following to at least look at your website, I would say it is well worth it. Of course, your site has to be capable, but at least Instagram will have done its part.
If done correctly, you should not be wasting any time with Instagram. Automating Instagram is essentially free advertisement, 24/7. Gain 100 new followers a day? Possibly 100 new unique viewers on your website, I'd say that is quite good. Have a lot of followers already? Expect to have a lot more than 100 new followers a day and expect to have more unique page views on your website.
 

BlokeInProgress

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After a week of doing a niche related activity which quite frankly I enjoyed. :D

Here are the things that I accomplished:

1. My GF and I got lots of photos and videos for the niche we are in.
2. Got to accomplish 2 articles for our niche.
3. Started reading SEO and Cashvertising
4. Our IG followers jumped to 530+ now and still growing
5. FB community page posts and published

Things to do this week:
1. Market our FB page using Fiverr to get started with social proof
2. Get 2-3 articles done for the website
3. Start website design
4. GF to create video content
 
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BlokeInProgress

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Just though I would mention the following, things that I did that helped me get back on track:

READING/LEARNING - went through a lot of reading, got addicted to it again but I wanted to know myself again so I read the ff:
- KNOW YOURSELF LIKE YOUR SUCCESS DEPENDS ON IT (by Michael Stawicki)
- SIMPLIFY YOUR PURSUIT OF SUCCESS (by Michael Stawicki)
- ACHIEVE (by Dr. Chris Friesen, PhD.) - highly recommended!!!
- Dan Pena's YOUR FIRST 100 MILLION and his Youtube videos
 

ZF Lee

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I had a business partner and we started 2 businesses (hardware supplier and catering services) but unfortunately both tumbled as fast as we started it (start Oct 2014 - ended Dec 2014), I lost all of my savings, and up to now, still paying my investors back their money and the interest I owe them. My farming, poultry and mushroom investments also took a huge beating when storm hit us bad a couple of times plus some unfortunate event during the collection of payments happened so in other words, I lost everything.

TWO BUSINESSES??? FARMING?

Unless you are equipped with good tech, high scale range and existing customer base, farming is Slowlane 1.0 just as real estate is wealth passitivity 1.0. And wasn't there insurance to make up for the losses?

Hardware and catering are both very tough niches. I know because my dad makes spare parts and he relies on contracts. Catering is a portable restaurant service, a known high-casualty niche. Focus on only ONE in which you can provide for a need the BEST.

But you did go into the Internet, and I believeit is better as it has more control and versatility. But please, focus on only one business! Even MJ emphasized monogamy! And I believe that makes life easier.
 

BlokeInProgress

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TWO BUSINESSES??? FARMING?

Unless you are equipped with good tech, high scale range and existing customer base, farming is Slowlane 1.0 just as real estate is wealth passitivity 1.0. And wasn't there insurance to make up for the losses?

Hardware and catering are both very tough niches. I know because my dad makes spare parts and he relies on contracts. Catering is a portable restaurant service, a known high-casualty niche. Focus on only ONE in which you can provide for a need the BEST.

But you did go into the Internet, and I believeit is better as it has more control and versatility. But please, focus on only one business! Even MJ emphasized monogamy! And I believe that makes life easier.

@ZF Lee Yeah there are important items that I really missed due to my lack of experience, I jumped too soon without even doing proper/due diligence. Those where the lessons I learned the hard way!

Currently, focusing in one and doing the best that I can to make it succeed is my goal. With the help of the lessons, experiences and advices I know this time is different!
 
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BlokeInProgress

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An update:

Currently, we are on 800+ followers and continuously growing in IG. I'm still using Instagress Liking with 50 Likes per hour Liking Users. Instead of getting fiverr gigs to look for users that are under my niche, I just do it during my downtime e.g. during transpo using my phone (which unfortunately I lost yesterday :( )

Additional progress we made:
1. Tried boosting Photo and Video in FB to get a feel of FB ads - so far we did 2 photos and 1 videos which garnered views and likes. Results shows that the ads reached about 3k with 150 Likes (and is now growing organically little by little).
2. Get 2-3 articles done for the website - me, my gf and a good fiverr writer I found have created about 5 articles ready for posting.
3. Start website design - I bought a theme in theme forest which I am currently studying (im also reading about SEO)
4. GF to create video content - on hold

Things for this week:
1. Continue IG posts
2. More FB Posts - IG photos + description, a little info about the pic with additional tips as description
3. Continue webpage design - Target of site launch (Dec 15), been looking at Top Niche related sites and dissecting them to get a good structure
4. More articles
5. Buy another phone (cheap but useful one)
 

BlokeInProgress

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Question in mind:
How much content does one need before launching a site to make it effective (at least has authority)
 

BlokeInProgress

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We reached the 1k followers in Instagram this week with was a MILESTONE for us! We still use Instagress and bought another 30 days for Liking. Since I started, I've researched more than 300 users which I rotate for Liking (User option in instagress) which means 100 users for x no. of days and use a different set after x no. of days.

Facebook progress - we are up and running, published post and tried the Boost Ad option. So far with a limited budget, we gained .5%-1% likes of the total reached. I'm also trying to work with some of my friends who has a lot of followers for a shout out to ad more.

Website progress - I had to pause this due to the issues I'm currently working on in the office, but I've got number of articles ready to be deployed (about 7 articles me, my writer and my gf made).

Excited for the next MILESTONE!!!
 
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BlokeInProgress

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After 2 weeks here's an update:

Successes:
1. 1.5k followers in IG
2. Completed Boost in FB for posts to have social proof - had an ave. .5% - 1% Likes for x no of engagements and views.
3. Completed 7 articles for Wordpress site
4. About Us page currently in-progress - took me hours to create a write up regarding US. Learned through copywriting lessons, content marketing and SEO research and I'm trying to apply the lessons I got and hopefully our audience get to know US more and create a relationship with them.
5. Capture more videos and images for our platforms.

Things that I found non-productive/Challenges:
1. I got a little addicted to "Injustice League" game and spent about an hour a day playing - damn I know its wrong!!!!
2. Got stressed in work due to some colleague of mind I get peeved at due to her attitude - sorry for the rant!
3. Sleeping a lot!
4. Wordpress site got issues and had to determine and fix the cause - spent half day researching but learned a lot.

Goals next week:
1. Complete About Page
2. Learn more Copywriting and Content Marketing + SEO
3. Reach 2k followers
4. Prepare site for Launch this January 2017
5. More niche photos and videos
 

BlokeInProgress

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Such a challenge getting things done. :(

With work in office (it's employee assessment season), I'd got no extra working on my site even on a weekend. New goal is to launch my site on the 30th-Jan and I'd be crushing the extra hours of work this week. :D Hopefully some caffeine, exercise and the intention takes me through the finish line.

Updates coming soon!
 

BlokeInProgress

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I was highly dependent on instagress and after it came to a halt, so is my progress. Have to stop and think of a new strategy to gain more engaged followers (real followers).
 
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Waspy

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I was highly dependent on instagress and after it came to a halt, so is my progress. Have to stop and think of a new strategy to gain more engaged followers (real followers).

You tried doing it organically? You know, posting valuable content, using the right hashtags so people find you.

Provide value and people shall come.
 

BlokeInProgress

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You tried doing it organically? You know, posting valuable content, using the right hashtags so people find you.

Provide value and people shall come.
I started with that step and accelerated the process using InstaG, but yes, I will go back to the basics and build my audience using powerful contents. :) Thanks for advice by the way. Have you also been growing your IG account?
 

Empires

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Just do the same stuff you had instagress doing manually. Takes maybe 10 minutes to like 100+ photo. Go into a few hashtags and like say 25 photos each hashtag. When I was using instagram I got around 1700 followers in alittle less than a month doing that 6-7 times a day.
 
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BlokeInProgress

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Just do the same stuff you had instagress doing manually. Takes maybe 10 minutes to like 100+ photo. Go into a few hashtags and like say 25 photos each hashtag. When I was using instagram I got around 1700 followers in alittle less than a month doing that 6-7 times a day.

Just a question @Empires, do you also interact with your followers, like commenting and engaging into a conversation? Or is it strictly Liking?
 

Empires

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Just a question @Empires, do you also interact with your followers, like commenting and engaging into a conversation? Or is it strictly Liking?
I would reply to comments on my posts. Never commented on other peoples posts though.
 

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