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I'm going to go from bankruptcy/£240,000 personal debt to a life of freedom using Facebook ads.

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

njord

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The best you can do is learn from those misstakes and keep going. I must say i made a simar misstake with FBA but luckey for me i only invested 4000€ of my own money in French presses. iv still got most of them at home (anyone want one? :happy: ) but lucky ive never know debt.
 
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Tourmaline

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Appreciate the story!

For your new company, did you validate the product well before hand?

You failed sure, but you learned a lot too. And your tenacity is admirable. Just keep going, eventually you'll make it. Cut the 'I wish I wasn't me' thoughts out of your head. They will undo you. You took risks because you know eventually a risk you take will pay off far greater than whatever slowlaners are doing.

The money you owe the bank is not something to feel guilty about. They're a major bank. The money they lent you didn't exist before you borrowed it. It costs them nothing.

The peer to peer lending is harder sure, but they're making money too and I wouldn't feel bad either. Pay it minimally while you work on the new business!
 

Paul David

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So the last couple of days the anxiety I had about my current debt situation has now been replaced with anxiety over running out of money in the next couple of months, as my e-commerce brand is still not profitable.

I'm 39 with a mortgage, two young children and Christmas on the way. Although my wife earns relatively good money I need to be earning money. I also need to keep my e-commerce going for however long it takes to become self-sufficient.

Therefore I've decided to re-list my power adapter database on eBay and Amazon but sell the adapters for a higher price than I did before. Any orders I will then drop-ship from one of my old competitors. If I can get 15-20 sales a day at even £2 profit it's around £1000 a month which is currently all I'm drawing from my company now anyway. Plus it will take around 1 hour a day maximum to run. Worst case scenario they don't sell because of the price, I have the option to drop the price and purchase some adapters from my old supplier and pack them from my garage. (Not ideal because it violates my rule of being able to work from anywhere anytime but I'm willing to do this short term)

I have also joined some facebook groups who specifically help with getting clients for running facebook ads for them. The aim is in the next 2 months is to get 1-3 clients paying a minimum £1000 a month retainer. The benefits of this are two-fold, one I will be able to bring in extra money and two I will be spending more time increasing my knowledge of Facebook ads.

Part of me thinks I am going back to my old ways of trying to spin too many plates at once but this time the difference is that the eBay and Amazon store is a means to an end. Simply to just keet some money coming in. Running Facebook ads for other people will increase my knowledge, have the added benefit of bringing in money and also help me reach my main overall goal of a successful e-commerce store.

The thought of helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses using Facebook ads excites and scares me at the same time. The scary part is whether I can actually produce the results. I have lots of help with this though on the Facebook groups.

On a positive note, my website got 4 orders yesterday with 5 products sold in total. That's the highest number of orders I've got so far. Onwards and upwards.
 

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On a positive note, my website got 4 orders yesterday with 5 products sold in total. That's the highest number of orders I've got so far. Onwards and upwards.

That is promising. Now what was the reason? Where did these customers come from? Better FB targeting? Are they responding after taking a week or two to make up their mind? Are your Ads more on point? Is this a move towards profitability or just a blip?

Lots of questions to consider.
 

Paul David

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I have my bankruptcy interview on Thursday, and it's something I'm looking forward to getting out of the way.

I've finished my automation and SOP's now and I'm ready to spend every day doing what increases the bottom line - signing up more clients. My profit target is £20k a month.

All my clients are still currently closed with lockdown and i've not earned a single dollar/penny since this began 3 months ago. However If I can come out of lockdown (around July 4th for my clients) with 20-30 clients in total I'm confident that I'll have gone from bankruptcy to earning £20k a month within the space of a few weeks. The most I've ever been able to pay myself during the last 20 years is £3.5k a month so it's some turnaround.

I will post an update on here when I've signed more clients.
 

Longinus

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Of course everybody is raving about your insane goal after you hit rock bottom, but just my 2 cents:

You have a crazy goal of making £20k/month in a couple of years months WEEKS, which you apparently never made in your whole life. I sincerely hope you'll make it, but... what if you don't? Is your wife gonna stay if you don't get it and you still refuse to find a job? Do you have another money chase plan ready by then?

I've never had a job at all. I've had my own businesses since 1998. I'm starting as a taxi driver which means i can earn money to take care of my family and still be able to work on my business. I wouldn't last two minutes working for someone else and it goes against everything i believe in.

Seems like your pride is standing in the way of what you really should consider.
 
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Longinus

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I've been debating making a post about this old school company for quite some time but never pulled the trigger because it's boring and not what the forum is used to.

The forum loves old school business, write that post already!
 
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Paul David

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To be honest, I lost sympathy for you at this point. It took me a long time and hard work to reach the imaginary profit numbers you are throwing around here. And I paid back my debt.

It would probably not be the worst idea to treat yourself to a big piece of humble pie.

Your new business sounds promising. Be careful not to underestimate the coming fallout from the lockdowns though.

Good luck.

Firstly I don't need your sympathy or anyone else's. I'm old enough to know that I'm the sole reason why I've ended up in the position I am.

I also wasn't saying there was anything wrong in spending 20 years of your life working your way up to £4500 a month either. I was just comparing what's possible when you create a business for yourself. You're right though those figures are imaginery until I start earning that. The same as any other business plan and the figures mooted about on them.

I don't know about you but I'm here because I want to earn enough money to create the lifestyle I want and that doesn't include working for 5 days a week in exchange for 2 days freedom of a weekend. Everybody's different though.

Kudos for paying back your debts too, I've spent the last couple of years swimming against the tide trying to pay mine back and great cost to my own sanity at times. The only reason I've eventually given in was when one creditor would not discuss a reasonable settlement figure (which I believe went against his clients wishes).

I agree with you about the fallout from lockdown, I'm also trying to create a modest income from affiliate sales of the software I've white labelled which I use for my marketing agency. Be nice for that to bring in maybe a couple of thousand dollars a month.

I will also begin driving a taxi in a couple of weeks as the bars and restaurants are now open again here in the UK if I need to bring extra income. I always thought I'd be a multi millionaire by the time I was 30 never mind bankrupt and driving a taxi at the turn of my 40th birthday next week. That's humble pie for me, believe me.
 

Paul David

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Over the past 2 weeks I've had some issues that I needed to take care of before onboarding anymore clients.

Issues such as:

- My VA's cancelling the wrong appointments
- My VA's not taking action on the CRM so leads are getting follow up messages whey they shouldn't be
- My VA's not cancelling appointments then the lead doesn't arrive and they get added to a no show follow up which is then incorrect
- Clinic owner not marking any clients as no show on our CRM (she did it on hers by mistake) so complained when £360 came out of her bank.
- Clinic owner complaining that two no shows happened on Saturday which is her busiest weekend
- Clinic owner marked a lead as no show but this was her second appointment not first (I think she was trying to get out of paying me the show up fee for original appointments but I caught her out!)

Having too many leads cancelling appointments with less than 48 hours notice which is annoying. I'm going to look at introducing a deposit policy.

I've lost 2 clients so far, the one who wasn't happy with the no shows (who was a nightmare to work with anyway) and another who's saying he's not getting a ROI. Which I find strange.

I'll be onboarding more clients over the next few weeks which will hopefully increase the revenue and profits however I'll tweak the process so that some of the issues above aren't replicated again.
 

Paul David

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Eventually, I ended up with a £50k bank overdraft that I had personally guaranteed.

I had a couple of websites I used to purchase new and used laptops from for my customers and loved the idea of running a similar site. So I purchased a domain called whichlaptop.co.uk and for the next 3 years alongside running the computer repair shop and selling power adapters on eBay, I tried to grow the laptop brand. The issue was that the larger stores like PC World and Best Buy were selling new laptops cheaper than I could buy them from the distributors. They were loss leaders to these companies and they made a profit on the after-sales. I must have sunk £100,000 into trying to grown the domain over the years not to mention the time invested. At worse I thought I had a good domain name which is of value. (Mistake 3)

To be Continued.......
 
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Paul David

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I had some power adapters that were selling well with Amazon FBA, so I decided to borrow more money (I was still heavily into my HSBC overdraft) from a peer to peer lending group to buy more power adapters and sell them in Europe via Amazon and USA. Over the course of 18 months, I stupidly borrowed £50,000 then another £100,000. Personally guaranteed by me. (Mistake 8) And I must also state at the time that I was advised not to on here.

I created 30-50 FBA listings per Amazon country and shipped power adapters direct from China to Amazon. Some sold but the majority didn't. It cost me a lot of money eventually to get them out of Amazon and back to me in the UK. I eventually sold them at a huge loss. My eBay and Amazon store had 3 employees at the time (one of which was my Brother) and I had to let them go. Eventually, I put my company into liquidation and set up a new company to buy the remaining power adapter stock at cost with the profits from ongoing sales. However now I was personally liable for the debts I'd guaranteed. £50k from HSBC and £143k outstanding from peer to peer lender. My plan was to pay it back with the profits from my new company. (Mistake 9).

To be Continued.......
 
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Paul David

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Sounds like a solid amount of failure lessons. Looking forward to hearing updates. Question. Have you spoken to a bankruptcy attorney yet?

I've spoken to numerous people about my options. The three options I have are 1. file for bankruptcy (which is complicated somewhat by the fact I'm the Director of a company) and I'd have to step down. 2. Try and pay off the debts in full or 3. negotiate a settlement with the creditors.

At the moment I'm going down the option 3 route. I'm not going to lie it doesn't look great on paper. However, the one positive (if you can actually call it that)is that I have very little equity in my home so the creditors know what if I file for bankruptcy they won't get a penny back from any assets as I have.

I'm pretty confident that I could negotiate a settlement figure of around £8k-£10k with HSBC. The other main creditor which is a peer to peer lending group will be more difficult however I'm pretty sure if I make an offer of £20k-£30k or tell them I'm filing for bankruptcy they may (and should) accept. The lending company would go to the people who've loaned me the money and present the offer to them. If it was me and I had to take £20k-£30k or nothing I'd have to take the money.

So there are options to possibly get the debt down to £40K or something even though yes on paper the debt as it stands is significantly more than that.
 
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biophase

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They launched 3 years ago now so unless they're playing a really long game using VC money they must be making a profit if spending $80k a month on Facebook ads.

Facebook ads could be losing money and just a customer acquisition tool. Do they sell other things? Sell on other channels?

You just never know.
 

Paul David

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Good point but I would guess @Paul has already made a purchase from them and gleaned all he could from their funnel process and followups. If not he's missing vital information and I think he's too smart for that despite previous indiscretions.

Paul, how are you estimating their monthly FB spend?

Yes I made a purchase from them last year. I know all about their email sequence and follow ups.

Regarding the ad spend. I met someone on a Facebook ads group who actually works for Facebook. He offered to take a look at my account whilst in work.

A few days later when we’re discussing it and my competitor he made an off the cuff remark saying “you need to be spending more than $80k a month to catch up to those guys”. He wouldn’t elaborate any further.
 
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Fastlane Liam

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Honestly what are you doing?

You're focus is wishy washy to the max. Seriously you've listed about 10 things you want to focus on, eating healthy, going to the gym, becoming a taxi driver, Facebook ads, e-commerce brand etc etc etc

Mate just pick one thing and do that. If it's selling Facebook ads then do that. Go get clients like you were.
 

Paul David

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Good, I'm getting around 1/2 calls a day from digital marketing agencies and I'm so pissed off, I started not listening and telling them off the bat "Sorry I don't need your services have a nice day" if they keep pushing I hang up.
To me they feel like a scam right now, in my sector it's very difficult to get leads and once you get them it's very difficult to convert, YES I do need their help but not in the way they propose it, like they propose making a good website and then running ads on specific keywords, guess what I can do that too, if they sent me an email with 4 companies in my niche and some example of the work they provided to them I would drop anywhere from 2 to 5k without hesitation(after veryfing), because honestly in real life it's not uncommon we pay 1k for a job we get for the person who introduced us, usually between 2 and 5% of the total job.
That means that if a serious agency got me 4 jobs in a year for a total revenue of 160k they would get anywhere from 3 to 8k €, BUT I wouldn't care how much they spend on ads or my website or whatever, that's the whole point.
Also 4 jobs in a year on automated ads etc.. in my opinion are not impossible, I've been debating making a post about this old school company for quite some time but never pulled the trigger because it's boring and not what the forum is used to.

This is the reason why I created my partner program. I don't approach my clients as a marketer, I approach them as a fellow business owner in their niche. My clients pay NOTHING upfront, they only pay me after a customer I've referred has walked through their door. I tell them the reason why I created the partner program was because of digital marketers contacting us, wanting money up front and providing us with a list of leads. Nobody wants leads, they want paying customers. I've solved that bridge.

I've been guilty in the past of trying to "replicate" other businesses, this time I've created something which no-one i've come across does. Some marketers are now trying to go a step further than connecting a customer with a client, by booking appointments etc but it's not as in-depth as the program I've created. I've basically developed a business that I control from start to finish that simply utilises contractors (ie my clients) to do the work and I make a cut off the top.
 

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Firstly I don't need your sympathy or anyone else's. I'm old enough to know that I'm the sole reason why I've ended up in the position I am.

I also wasn't saying there was anything wrong in spending 20 years of your life working your way up to £4500 a month either. I was just comparing what's possible when you create a business for yourself. You're right though those figures are imaginery until I start earning that. The same as any other business plan and the figures mooted about on them.

I don't know about you but I'm here because I want to earn enough money to create the lifestyle I want and that doesn't include working for 5 days a week in exchange for 2 days freedom of a weekend. Everybody's different though.

Kudos for paying back your debts too, I've spent the last couple of years swimming against the tide trying to pay mine back and great cost to my own sanity at times. The only reason I've eventually given in was when one creditor would not discuss a reasonable settlement figure (which I believe went against his clients wishes).

I agree with you about the fallout from lockdown, I'm also trying to create a modest income from affiliate sales of the software I've white labelled which I use for my marketing agency. Be nice for that to bring in maybe a couple of thousand dollars a month.

I will also begin driving a taxi in a couple of weeks as the bars and restaurants are now open again here in the UK if I need to bring extra income. I always thought I'd be a multi millionaire by the time I was 30 never mind bankrupt and driving a taxi at the turn of my 40th birthday next week. That's humble pie for me, believe me.
@Paul David I hope you wouldn't mind me suggesting you to do what you think is best for you and your family. You make your own choices, despite the fact you have made numerous mistakes, you have learned great deal, which a lot of us won't be able to do. We live on this earth to learn, experience and be better than yesterday. My advice is don't explain yourself, defend yourself, these are your own decisions, so your business is your business. When you decide to defend yourself or explain your actions you are switching to negative mode, which in your situation doesn't help.

You are on the right path and we are here to support everyone who is trying to get grip of life!

Best wishes,
Pete
 
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Paul David

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I eventually did nothing with whichlaptop.co.uk website or the website for buying laptops for people and let the domain expire. I run the computer repair shop until 2016 alongside my eBay business and by that time I'd had enough of the repair shop. Profits were down as people hardly had laptops or desktops anymore and I didn't even like being in the shop. I tended to work from home mostly and let my staff member run it. I made a decision (after some help from @Vigilante ) and closed it and now focused entirely on eBay business.

I couldn't become rich selling power adapters only on eBay so I started a website selling batteries alongside (mistake 7). I'd seen another company doing really well and thought yes I like that idea. This, unfortunately, was around the time a couple of planes went down due to lithium-ion batteries exploding. So my courier in the UK, Royal Mail, refused to carry them anymore. There was also that many different models of batteries that it ended up being a dropshipping model so I pulled the plug after 12-18 months.

To be Continued.......
 

Paul David

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Next idea was Amazon FBA and i was still running my power adapter eBay business at the time.

I bought a course for for Amazon FBA for £4000 and started to look for things to sell. Initially I struggled with the notion of selling random things as I'd always wanted to build something big that meant something. So it took me a while to find a niche I could add value to. I found a couple of products to sell and did OK but nothing exciting. I then came across a power adapter seller in US doing really well. And herein lies the £150,000 mistake.

To be Continued.......
 
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Sounds like a solid amount of failure lessons. Looking forward to hearing updates. Question. Have you spoken to a bankruptcy attorney yet?
 

Paul David

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Paul, the main thing I would say is that it seems your only mistake seemed to be not building equity in the business before exploring new channels. Everyone has done it to some degree, so your situation is somewhat academic... the problem is that since the numbers are comparatively large, you're feeling overwhelmed. Stay strong, "they can't eat you".

The way I'd fix it is to center what you're doing around the building of equity, which would allow you to balance growth against a shareholding within the business. Your present situation happened because you borrowed unsecured money against non-existent assets - money which was used to buy products over-which you held no IP (equity).

What I would do is consider very deeply what you're doing to build real equity in your new brand. What products are you selling? Can you create traffic streams away from FB ads? Can you talk to companies about creating affiliated offers? What's the barrier to entry on manufacturing the products yourself?

If you're not careful, FB ads are going to be your new eBay/website/stores/FBA.

--

PS one thing you absolutely must look at is to somehow get your personal debt to offset your tax obligations. I'm not an accountant, but this is what Donald Trump did in 1995 -- using losses as a means to write-off tax can, in some jurisdictions, give you a tax-free buffer when you do start earning again.

In the UK, this is what a profit/loss account is for in a business. You carry over losses and that offsets corp tax moving forward. If your business is in the hole, would be worth seeing if an account can offset the debt as a loss.

Thanks for your advice. Completely understand where you're coming from regarding Facebook ads becoming the new ebay or Amazon store with no control. I'm actively trying to build assets for the brand, email lists, facebook fans (although not worth much financially), instagram followers, facebook messenger followers.

Regarding the offset of tax, the debts were passed down from my previous Limited company which has now gone into liquidation so I don't think I can benefit using the new company. I will speak to my accountant about this and thank you for the suggestion.
 

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Good for you for taking some bad lessons and making the most of it. Negotiating with the creditors can certainly be a good bet, but also don't know the option of bankruptcy if it ends up being your best option- I feel as though there is this very negative connotation with bankruptcy as in bankruptcy = Failure, and that isn't always the case. Though it is always a last resort option, sometimes it can be the best option given the situation. Good luck with venture!
 
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After 5-6 years I decided I didn't want to be stuck in a shop fixing computers all day and came across people selling laptop chargers on eBay. I was hooked. So I started selling laptop chargers on eBay alongside running my shop.

I had a couple of websites I used to purchase new and used laptops from for my customers and loved the idea of running a similar site. So I purchased a domain called whichlaptop.co.uk and for the next 3 years alongside running the computer repair shop and selling power adapters on eBay, I tried to grow the laptop brand.

Anyway, I then came across a company in Scotland who had 5 computer repair shops (they were actually buying laptop adapters from me). So I drove 4 hours to Scotland to see what sort of set up they had. I drove back a couple of hours later and I had decided I wanted to have more repair shops.

I then came across a power adapter seller in US doing really well. And herein lies the £150,000 mistake.

Do you see a pattern?

For my new product, I have priced it at the higher end of the market and only have 1 competitor at the price point. They are doing extremely well.

What are you going to do better than they are?

Do you know their margins?

Do you know this market?
 

Paul David

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Sorry I meant power adapters or whatever it is that you're selling (to me it seemed like you were always selling the same thing).

My mistake. Seems like you've got some plans that you want to see through to the end. So let me just wish you the best of luck. Was just trying to help.

Have a good day.

Thank you. I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to offer me advice. Means a lot!
 
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It’s not possible to validate the design without actually launching the products.
I’ve had great feedback about the designs since launching however.

Actually, you can. You can run ads and gauge interest. If you don't sell many, you can refund what people purchased, and you've learned a lot without investing in inventory.

What is your lead time if people do like it?

And as long as you set expectations (i.e. send email that sold out and will be shipping out more units after XX date), you'll be fine.

Keep your head up. I've been trying since '99 with fits and spurts, some successes, and a lot of distractions causing failures. I finally figured out what I'm good at and am working on getting more clients for that so I can replace current clients who no longer are aligned with my business focus.
 

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I totally disagree with that advice. That is going backwards in my opinion. If you spend any time with people who run their own successful FB ad agency you know that they all want their own product. They have seen how much success they have created for their clients and want the same for themselves. In fact many are running other peoples products as well because they don't have their own.
Those people aren’t 250k in debt. It may be going backwards but his current situation is running him more and more into the negative so perhaps backwards isn’t so bad in this case
 

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Just as way of an update....

I'm still fending off companies chasing their debts most days, i'm being honest and open with them on the situation and nearly all of them are continually giving me another 30 days each month to see if things have improved.

On the business front, the sales of my ecommerce store are still slow and not profitable. I will be working on this more myself during the next week as it's still in the hands of another digital marketer.

I've selected a client niche that i will target, to start running Facebook ads for. I am in the process of developing a one page website and step by step approach to target clients daily. This will be done by a variety of different methods. I also have someone in India who is proficient in this niche who is willing to white label the clients advertising on my behalf. I know of one guy who has all his clients with this particular Indian company and is delighted with the results.

This is an option i'm considering but the number 1 aim at the moment is get my first client. I'll update not 'if' but 'when' i have one.
 

Paul David

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How is this working? Are you operating from a LTD? I thought you weren't allowed to be a director of an LTD for a set amount of time after going bankrupt...

Correct. I can't be a Director for 1 year. I can only be an "employee" of a Ltd company.
 

Paul David

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yet she's the one who's making the "wrong" decision in life, to slave away at a job.

Who said she was making the wrong decision? I said I don't consider it great money and it's something I personally wouldn't do. And I'm saying that even now when I've just filed for bankruptcy. I didn't say it was the wrong decision for her. It's the wrong decision for me.

I'm also not saying to my Wife's face I don't think it's great money nor my friends. The same as you wouldn't say to your friend that his Wife wasn't attractive. You may think it but you wouldn't say it to their face.

I say this from the bottom of my heart, be more humble, appreciate your wife and be grateful she's making what you consider little money, I don't know your complete financial picture maybe your parents are rich etc.. and you have some safety net other than your wife.

Humble has nothing to do with it, I can still appreciate that my wife is a slowlaner and has earned regular income but don't share the same views. I've contributed just as much over the last 20 years to our income as my wife has. However the last couple of years I took a risk to benefit both our lives and it didn't work out. I would go back and do things differently but I don't regret taking the chance of trying to change our lives financially for the better so that we can both have more freedom.

Do you know what I think about when I go to sleep at night? I think about how to surprise my Wife by meeting her after work, booking a nice restaurant and then telling her that my business is now doing so well she can reduce her working hours or stop working altogether if she wanted. That she now has a choice.

That day will come.

The only reason I brought salary up on here was to emphasise what MJ says in his book about not trading 5 days of your life in exchange for 2 at a job you don't like for 40 years. Also to show what's possible.

Good luck with your journey, looking forward to the actual 20k x month post, until then keep grinding and stay humble, don't act like you made it until you make it and then make your own conclusions, wheter it was easier/more effective than the safe job, which by the way removes a lot of stress from your life, someone else has to make the money so you can get your paycheck, if they fail you just get another job while they go bankrupt.

Thanks. A lot of people quit before they make it. They go and get a job forever. Not me. I'm prepared to get a job/drive a taxi short term if need be. Long term employment isn't for me in the same way entrepreneurship isn't for most slowlaners. There's no right or wrong. Only that you remain true to your beliefs and philosophy. I'll keep trying until I'm on my deathbed.
 
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Paul David

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Ok so it looks like I'm coming out of lockdown with 20-21 clients in total.

I could have easily signed more but as I'm the one paying ad spend up front I want to ensure I can make profit from the clients I have.

I'm actually feeling a bit anxious now, some of my clients are opening this week and after 3 months of improving and building my pay per show system it's finally time to see how good it works.

It's do or die time so to speak.
 
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