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This is me 50 years old

Manthe

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Sep 9, 2019
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Hi all.
My name is Måns (Pronounced Mons in Swedish) but you can address me as Mans, since I guess you have no Swedish characters on your keyboard.

I was born in 1969, and I turned 50 years old this year (2019).
I live with my wife in the south of Sweden.
We met when we were 17, and we are still happily married :blush:
We have 2 daughters (24 and 26 years old) that moved out 2 years ago, so my life feels quite free at the moment. Two dogs as well.

My life changed in 2016 after attending a Tony Robbins event (Unleash the Power within).
My apologies to @MJ DeMarco , but I think Tony does a great job as a life coach, but maybe not so much as a financial adviser with his 2 books on finance, LOL!
Anyway, after UPW I had enormous energy and I felt that something had to change in my life.

After attending Millionaire Mind Intensive by T. Harv Eker, I realized that I had to start my own business to get wealthy.

I have been working with IT and Telecom as a senior consultant the last 20 years, so I am quite computer savvy.
However I felt that things had to change, and I could simply not continue as an employee.

After arranging an internal company course on the SIP protocol, I realized I could do the same for external companies, so I did.
I cold called some companies and eventually I did a 2 day course for another company and sent my first invoice ever. It felt good, but it was not enough.

After attending another course in Digital Marketing, I felt that THIS IS IT!
I loved all the new skills I learned and was a really easy learner since I had much more complex tech skills from my employment.
Since I still had so much energy and determination after UPW, I decided to get out of bed 1 hour earlier than usual, and study the Digital Marketing course one hour every morning.
After learning about email software, automations, Youtube, Facebook ads, and a lot of other stuff, I got hooked by Messenger Chatbots.

Working with Chatbots I also went down the path to automation, with software like Zapier and Integromat, and integrating card payments with Stripe.

I realized I could do a supercool Chatbot for restaurants, to take orders with payments and everything.
I cold called a local restaurant and asked if I could do a short demo, on how they could get more customers, and they accepted instantly.
I did a really cool demo, with their actual menu in the demo and they were blown away.
They said “name you price”, and I did. It was really cheap, and I would hardly make any money from the deal, but I had to get my first customer!
After a couple of weeks they came back to me telling me that they were doing a procurement finding an app-developer to develop their own app for the restaurant, and they also said I was too expensive!
I couldn’t believe it, so I backed down.
Last time I checked, they still have no app and no Chatbot either...

I then remembered a friend that I used to train Karate with, and I knew he sold information about what funds he was choosing in the Swedish retirement system, since he has been able to have average of +20% increase every year the last 20 years.

I contacted him and asked him about his business.
It turned out that he was forced to hire an IT developer to manage his system for selling and delivering mail and SMS about his choice of funds.
The IT developer was SUPER expensive, and even if he had almost 10 000 customers, he made no money!
His IT expenses was insane.

I told him that I could help him automate his system for like 1% of his current IT expenses, and also get more customers with Facebook ads and a Chatbot, handling the selling dialog to any new customers.

I did not like the idea of helping him the way the IT developer had done, so I said:
I will help you for free, and when this thing is up and running I want 10% of the profit from the business.
No profit = no money to me.
Good profit = more money to me.

This was about one year ago, and it has been an exciting year.
I have learned sooooo much about payment systems and automations, I feel like I can do almost anything right now.
I kicked out the IT developer and changed the CRM system for my friend, and introduced card payments, mobile phone payments, and outsourced the creation of invoices.
His business is running almost on autopilot now, and I get about $5000 every month from my 10%, and it is increasing every month.
The last automation process I hired a developer from India on Upwork, so that is also an experience.
Since I am still 100% employed, the work for my friend was done mostly early mornings, and late evenings and in weekends.
It has been a struggle, but at the same time I have been consistent to training at the gym at least 3 time per week, and sleeping 6-7 hours every day.
Even if I sometimes had no time to train, I said to myself:
If I don't train, I will lose my energy, and the work will suffer.
I have really trained my mind during this last year in all different areas.
Constantly listening to audio books and podcasts while training and when walking the dogs.
I think I have listened to Unscripted and The Millionaire Fastlane at least 10 times each!

So here I am today.
It feels like this last 2 years was my pyramid building years, just like Tuma in The Millionaire Fastlane .

Right now I have two major business ideas that includes AI trained Chatbots.
In the coming weeks I am building a demo for my upcoming customers, and it will be a blast and it will not be cheap!
I have scraped the marked for competition but found no one in Sweden at least :)

I am a bit worried about the business idea, since parts of it, builds on Facebook Messenger and Google services, that I do not control.

I don't really know why I didn’t join this forum earlier, but I think it was because I simply did not have the time.

Skills collected in the last 2 years:
Email marketing and automation with Active Campaign
Automations by Zapier
Automations by Integromat
Chatbots by Manychat
Mailparsing with Mailparser.io
XML file structure
Stripe integrations
Ninja Forms
Wordpress
DIVI wordpress theme
Webhosting
MySQL
Webbhooks
SMS integrations
API requests and responses
Youtube
Ranking on 1:st page on Google search with Youtube
Editing sound files in Audacity
Editing film in Camtasia
Creating hand drawn animation films
The Google environment (Gsheet, calendar, Gmail, and many more)
AI with Google Dialog Flow
Integrations to Google home
E-mail printers
Regular Expressions
Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager
Facebook ads
Instagram
Copywriting
ClickFunnels
Udemy sales where you can learn anything for like $9.99
I think that’s about it, but still learning…

Books I have read/listened to in the last 2 years:
Unscripted
The Millionaire Fastlane
The One Thing
Think and grow rich
Outwitting the Devil
Expert Secrets
Good to Great
100 Startup
Crushing it
Never split the difference
59 seconds
The Go-Getter
4 hour work week
7 habits of highly effective people
Money master the game
F*ck your fears
Awaken the giant within
The Code of the extraordinary mind
and more...

If I can help anybody in here ( I am a helper), I will, but I must point out that my prio 1 focus right now is to get my own business into the world ASAP.

Why am I on this journey?
I realized that working as an employee is never going to get my wealthy.
Also I want to take my kids into this entrepreneurial journey, since they are still so young.
I don't want them to grind the wheels of our modern society, and just work and then die.
My oldest daughter keeps saying “life sucks and then you die”
I hope I can get her into other thoughts.

I want to be free!
Have freedom of choice for me and my family.
I want to have fun!
And I want a Tesla… LOL :playful:



See you around

/Måns
 
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Monkeycom

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Congrats on taking the first step. It's usually hard to go back once it's done.
Do you have any savings ?

You may consider to buy a small business to quick start the process.
Search through the forum, you've a ton of info on it.

Look at ecom businesses.

Don't hesitate to ask for help!
Good luck!
 

Manthe

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Sep 9, 2019
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Congrats on taking the first step. It's usually hard to go back once it's done.
Do you have any savings ?

You may consider to buy a small business to quick start the process.
Search through the forum, you've a ton of info on it.

Look at ecom businesses.

Don't hesitate to ask for help!
Good luck!
Thanks for the tip @Monkeycom. I dont have any savings, but it sounds interesting as you say, to buy a ecom business. I will definitely look into that option.
/Mans
 

Entre Eyes

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That was an excellent share thank you.

Like the read book lists.

You should see my skimmed book list! :)

Also getting a good ecom may not break the bank there are some who create them add SEO, get some sales flowing just for the purpose of selling them in places like Flippa.com

Many people buy, get the stats increased and Sell again.
 
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NMdad

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Nice work on optimizing the investment newsletter business!

I'm in your age group, and I feel the urgency of having fewer years left to create something. My kids are 15 & 18, and I agree with you: I want to give my kids a start on creating a life that's more fulfilling than the "work then die" template.

So, for you, now that you've built a solid automated system for that investment newsletter, you might consider looking for similar businesses/owners/newsletters where you can repeat your template. Replacing your day-job income could free up your 40+ hours/week to focus on what you really want to do.
 

Champion

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Hey Mans, welcome to the forum!

First of all, big props for being sooo motivated at 50. Im currently 26 and can only hope to be like you when I grow up haha :D.

Im currently in the process of launching my first online store with my own product (Supplements) in Germany.

Lets keep in touch!

Best
 

Dan_Fastlane

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My oldest daughter keeps saying “life sucks and then you die”
hahah good one!!! she realizing it with that age, nice!


i think you are in a good position and in a very beautiful country too!

Keep going
 
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Manthe

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Sep 9, 2019
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Nice work on optimizing the investment newsletter business!

I'm in your age group, and I feel the urgency of having fewer years left to create something. My kids are 15 & 18, and I agree with you: I want to give my kids a start on creating a life that's more fulfilling than the "work then die" template.

So, for you, now that you've built a solid automated system for that investment newsletter, you might consider looking for similar businesses/owners/newsletters where you can repeat your template. Replacing your day-job income could free up your 40+ hours/week to focus on what you really want to do.
THX for your reply @NMdad , I actually didn't think about repeating this process. The drawback with repeating it, would be that I will be working for someone else brand. This time I will focus on my own brand, with full control of everything.

Wish you the best of luck with your adventure :cool:

/Mans
 

ChiEntrepreneur

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Nice work on optimizing the investment newsletter business!

I'm in your age group, and I feel the urgency of having fewer years left to create something. My kids are 15 & 18, and I agree with you: I want to give my kids a start on creating a life that's more fulfilling than the "work then die" template.

So, for you, now that you've built a solid automated system for that investment newsletter, you might consider looking for similar businesses/owners/newsletters where you can repeat your template. Replacing your day-job income could free up your 40+ hours/week to focus on what you really want to do.

You could see where that expensive IT guy is working now and make a proposal to their current client ;)
 

MJ DeMarco

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Welcome Mans, appreciate the intro and congrats on what you've done thus far.
 
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RazorCut

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Welcome Måns, great intro and well worth the read.

I did a really cool demo, with their actual menu in the demo and they were blown away.
They said “name you price”, and I did. It was really cheap, and I would hardly make any money from the deal, but I had to get my first customer!
After a couple of weeks they came back to me telling me that they were doing a procurement finding an app-developer to develop their own app for the restaurant, and they also said I was too expensive!

Ha I find that so funny. You give them a way to cost effectively and automatically increase their customers and therefore profits, which they love, then they decide its too expensive.

I have a client at the moment who was going to spend about $70k on a refurbishment of two rooms in an open plan office building they intend to move out of in 2 years. The Procurement Manager thought the directors were mad wanting to spend so much on something that would prove temporary so he invited me to see what I could do that would be cost efficient but still significantly improve the environment for all the staff.

I gave them 3 options, but the cheapest (around $2.5k had lots of potential issues and a drawn out timeline which I made them well aware of. The next option was only about $1k more. The 3rd option was there mainly to get them to take option 2 which was the logical one. However the project was passed on to the facilities manager and she obviously just picked the cheapest option without reading the quote.

So from $70k they are nit picking about spending an additional $1k from a company that posted a $13m gross profit last year. It makes you want to bang your head against a wall.

Look forward to reading about your progress and insights on your journey.
 

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