Hi guys. My name's Bill. I'm hanging out down here in Australia. I hope this post isn't too long. I have a tendency... I'll try to skip along as fast as possible. This is my second intro but I've been absent for so long that I wanted to do another one. I've been a member here for a while (a few years) but after a few years of umming and aaahing a few days ago I decided to commit to a year's subscription as an INSIDERS.
I've already done a few laps in the fastlane but spun out around a couple of the last corners. Still, once a racer always a racer.
Quick story so far. I'm 51 and up until I was 39 I was two things; for the first 3/4 of my working career I was just a general shit kicker/labourer/welder...over 65 jobs. The last 1/4 of my working career (until 2004) I was into IT support with a couple of Microsoft Certifications under my belt. I instantly fell in love with the Internet in 1998 and have been online more or else all day, every day since then.But I went from broke at 39 (2004) to "retired" at 41 (2006) and just recently celebrated 4,000 "days off" in a row. This doesn't mean I'm independently wealthy with multiple sources of passive income; it means I don't have to go to a job for money, I work from home doing whatever I want whenever I want. That's good enough for me - for now anyway.
In 2004 I was introduced by a friend to "wealth creation", bought a home study course that taught general principles and focused mostly on trading options, some property strategies and a few internet income ideas. I went with options trading, got pretty good at it (mostly selling credit Put spreads) and become quite well known on their forum which lead to my first public speaking appearance (that's me on the left making some point).
This is where my first Fastlane race occurred. One weekend at a 4 day seminar I met a guy and (long story short) we ended up partnering in a support service which consisted of a private v-Bulletin forum for which we charged $99 a month (or $1,000 a year) to access. My task was to be the website manager, I built and maintained the entire operation while the other guy was the star trader who showed members what trades he was doing so they could learn.
There was also a third guy who played a few marketing roles and we paid 10% to a programmer who really knew php much better than I did. So I was a 30% partner. We had hundreds and hundreds of members. Our biggest month was $250k (there's an interesting story behind why if anyone wants to know) while for the most part $75-100k was the normal net monthly membership income. My share of that was often $20,000 to $30,000 a month.
At the same time I was also selling credit Put spreads with a bank which floated around $200,000 of which half was usually in the market at any one time bringing in an extra 5-15% per month. Needless to say I was making more than enough money and way more than I'd ever made before. I was definitely on what appeared to be the Fastlane but this was many years before I read TMF and I didn't really know how to handle the money I was making. I just wanted to become a "millionaire" without really knowing what it would take or what it would look like when I got there.
Anyway, about 2 years in (and for various reasons both personal and business) I made it known I was open to a buy out offer. As it happens the other partners were keen to make an offer and I ended up exiting for a tidy $650k. I was staring at $650,000 in my bank account. I could spend it any way I liked. Happy day. That was January 1st 2007 - 2 years after starting the website from scratch. I'm guessing with everything added up I pulled in close to a million bucks in those first two years.
The first thing I did was go for a really long drive in my supercharged V8 sedan. Stayed out on the road for weeks and weeks just enjoying the freedom with no aim or direction. Just drive. When I was itching to start something else I started coaching people on how I was day trading options on the Australian market - something many people told me was impossible. I made some videos recording everything I did and sold them as home study courses for between $1,800 and $5,000 including personal 1-on-1 in your house multi day coaching for $10k and even took an international gig for $20k.
I invested in some other things I shouldn't have (felt invincible) and lost a fair bit (dufus). Lost focus on the coaching, options lost it's sheen after "the crisis" (i.e. a direction became hard to nail down) and sales slowed down to the point where I questioned my license costs and I eventually pulled the coaching and started focussing on other business interests and writing my book.
I've now finished writing my book. It's 25,500 words, 130 pages and I've also recorded and produced the audio-book. I'm going to be self publishing (after going through a horror experience with a "real publisher" and having to "buy my contract back") and I've decided on using Lightning Source (Ingram Spark) as my printer. I can print them for about $4.00 delivered to my door in A5 paperback which is about as good as it gets I've discovered after years of trying to find a decent printing quote. I've paid up to $13 each for my first 10 (I was itching to see it) but for the most part, the cheapest I can get a book this size printed is about $6 so I'm pretty happy with 100 books delivered to my door for $400.
I'm currently fighting the challenges of finding where my market's hanging out, writing my sales copy, building a decent platform using the latest techniques (my own skills are very old school and sooo 2007), and trying to figure out a way to promote the book. Once I have a decent website sales page and some good squeeze pages and follow up emails I'll start to drive some facebook traffic at it to see what it takes to get some sales. Speaking of which, pricing my book is tricky for me.
The book's been up on Amazon for a few years now and has some pretty good (all real) 4 and 5 star reviews. I've sold a few dozen from my website as "audio-e-books" and it's been received very well. It's a winner - I'm comfortable with that. I'd also like to speak on my topic even though that's not a very fastlane activity I like doing it as it's part of my "hobbies and passions". Also trying to figure out how I can help my readers as well for a possible second bite at that subscription income. That was really nice.
Now, I have to finalise the print version (still fiddling a little with the cover) and start pushing them out there I guess. I'm excited about the "Author/Speaker" path. It suits me and I love my topic - I lose all sense of time when I'm sharing it.
Thanks MJ for this forum, your book and your support, your invitation to share and the chance to help others. I'm open to questions and I look forward to helping other members and being a useful part of this community.
I've already done a few laps in the fastlane but spun out around a couple of the last corners. Still, once a racer always a racer.
Quick story so far. I'm 51 and up until I was 39 I was two things; for the first 3/4 of my working career I was just a general shit kicker/labourer/welder...over 65 jobs. The last 1/4 of my working career (until 2004) I was into IT support with a couple of Microsoft Certifications under my belt. I instantly fell in love with the Internet in 1998 and have been online more or else all day, every day since then.But I went from broke at 39 (2004) to "retired" at 41 (2006) and just recently celebrated 4,000 "days off" in a row. This doesn't mean I'm independently wealthy with multiple sources of passive income; it means I don't have to go to a job for money, I work from home doing whatever I want whenever I want. That's good enough for me - for now anyway.
In 2004 I was introduced by a friend to "wealth creation", bought a home study course that taught general principles and focused mostly on trading options, some property strategies and a few internet income ideas. I went with options trading, got pretty good at it (mostly selling credit Put spreads) and become quite well known on their forum which lead to my first public speaking appearance (that's me on the left making some point).
This is where my first Fastlane race occurred. One weekend at a 4 day seminar I met a guy and (long story short) we ended up partnering in a support service which consisted of a private v-Bulletin forum for which we charged $99 a month (or $1,000 a year) to access. My task was to be the website manager, I built and maintained the entire operation while the other guy was the star trader who showed members what trades he was doing so they could learn.
There was also a third guy who played a few marketing roles and we paid 10% to a programmer who really knew php much better than I did. So I was a 30% partner. We had hundreds and hundreds of members. Our biggest month was $250k (there's an interesting story behind why if anyone wants to know) while for the most part $75-100k was the normal net monthly membership income. My share of that was often $20,000 to $30,000 a month.
At the same time I was also selling credit Put spreads with a bank which floated around $200,000 of which half was usually in the market at any one time bringing in an extra 5-15% per month. Needless to say I was making more than enough money and way more than I'd ever made before. I was definitely on what appeared to be the Fastlane but this was many years before I read TMF and I didn't really know how to handle the money I was making. I just wanted to become a "millionaire" without really knowing what it would take or what it would look like when I got there.
Anyway, about 2 years in (and for various reasons both personal and business) I made it known I was open to a buy out offer. As it happens the other partners were keen to make an offer and I ended up exiting for a tidy $650k. I was staring at $650,000 in my bank account. I could spend it any way I liked. Happy day. That was January 1st 2007 - 2 years after starting the website from scratch. I'm guessing with everything added up I pulled in close to a million bucks in those first two years.
The first thing I did was go for a really long drive in my supercharged V8 sedan. Stayed out on the road for weeks and weeks just enjoying the freedom with no aim or direction. Just drive. When I was itching to start something else I started coaching people on how I was day trading options on the Australian market - something many people told me was impossible. I made some videos recording everything I did and sold them as home study courses for between $1,800 and $5,000 including personal 1-on-1 in your house multi day coaching for $10k and even took an international gig for $20k.
I invested in some other things I shouldn't have (felt invincible) and lost a fair bit (dufus). Lost focus on the coaching, options lost it's sheen after "the crisis" (i.e. a direction became hard to nail down) and sales slowed down to the point where I questioned my license costs and I eventually pulled the coaching and started focussing on other business interests and writing my book.
I've now finished writing my book. It's 25,500 words, 130 pages and I've also recorded and produced the audio-book. I'm going to be self publishing (after going through a horror experience with a "real publisher" and having to "buy my contract back") and I've decided on using Lightning Source (Ingram Spark) as my printer. I can print them for about $4.00 delivered to my door in A5 paperback which is about as good as it gets I've discovered after years of trying to find a decent printing quote. I've paid up to $13 each for my first 10 (I was itching to see it) but for the most part, the cheapest I can get a book this size printed is about $6 so I'm pretty happy with 100 books delivered to my door for $400.
I'm currently fighting the challenges of finding where my market's hanging out, writing my sales copy, building a decent platform using the latest techniques (my own skills are very old school and sooo 2007), and trying to figure out a way to promote the book. Once I have a decent website sales page and some good squeeze pages and follow up emails I'll start to drive some facebook traffic at it to see what it takes to get some sales. Speaking of which, pricing my book is tricky for me.
The book's been up on Amazon for a few years now and has some pretty good (all real) 4 and 5 star reviews. I've sold a few dozen from my website as "audio-e-books" and it's been received very well. It's a winner - I'm comfortable with that. I'd also like to speak on my topic even though that's not a very fastlane activity I like doing it as it's part of my "hobbies and passions". Also trying to figure out how I can help my readers as well for a possible second bite at that subscription income. That was really nice.
Now, I have to finalise the print version (still fiddling a little with the cover) and start pushing them out there I guess. I'm excited about the "Author/Speaker" path. It suits me and I love my topic - I lose all sense of time when I'm sharing it.
Thanks MJ for this forum, your book and your support, your invitation to share and the chance to help others. I'm open to questions and I look forward to helping other members and being a useful part of this community.
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