Hi All.
This is my first post here in quite a while. I wanted to share what’s happened with me over the past 16 months now that I’m trying to return here to the Forum and participate daily in the community. Both to share my struggles, my successes, and to provide context for a few future posts that I’m planning on making.
I read TMF and Unscripted back in 2018 and 2019 as I was starting my first business (real estate investing), I didn’t work up the courage to come here to the forum until early 2021. You can learn all about me and my journey to arrive here at the forum in my Intro Post.
In 2021, my goal was to start really learning digital marketing and start a new business in the online space. Like many people starting out, I bought a few courses to start learning some skills. I got busy executing and stopped coming to the forum (bad on me), but I wanted to gain some experience doing things. I tried my hand at digital publishing (was ok), eComm (a program so horrible I got my money back), and then started learning email marketing with the goal of trying some affiliate marketing (I know, I can hear the groans now…).
The journey through email marketing led me to invest some time learning Facebook Ads (starting around May 2021) as a traffic source. FB Ads is something I had been looking at but never quite got started as part of lead generation for my real estate business. So once I really got the fundamentals of FB Ads down, I decided to take a real run at using them for Motivated Seller Lead Generation in Real Estate Investing.
Fortunately I had a friend that I had partnered with on some deals that was willing to try FB Ads with me. We made an agreement that I’d do the tech work, he would pay the ad spend, he would work the leads, and we would split the profits. I charged him a nominal fee each month just to cover the costs of some software.
Working with him led to a word-of-mouth recommendation to another investor, and I started doing similar work for them. These two investors in effect served as my case studies (or Guinea pigs) to develop the systematic process I would use to do a tech setup for FB Ads for other investors.
By August 2021, I had these two investors up and running solid ads and I wanted to expand to a larger audience and work with more investors. This led me to think about using a high-ticket coaching/consulting model to do this, as it's more of a service than a product. So I got some training in that arena in Aug-Oct 2021 to learn to brand and market my service and get more clients.
Those three months were grueling. I tried doing organic traffic and outreach on Facebook, which I totally hated and completely sucked at because it felt so artificial and like push marketing. I started my own Facebook group and got overwhelmed by the schedule of trying to write and post content and doing live streams (I HATE doing videos…). But I did it. I stuck with it. I wouldn’t let anything stop me from doing what I needed to do to succeed.
I persevered through December and was rewarded with a Christmas present that I was very grateful for - I signed two new clients at the end of December for a total of $16,000 ($7500 & $8500) in revenue. I had preliminary meetings with them before Christmas to start gathering information and planning, but I was traveling for the holidays. So I told them we’d start the serious work in the first week of January.
I was stoked. And I was poised to use the success as the jumping off point to totally rock 2022.
And then Setbacks and Tragedy struck.
The day after I returned from traveling the first week of January, I came down with Covid (Setback #1). My case of covid itself wasn’t too bad, but I also got a secondary sinus infection just as I was about to go back to work. I was out of work for a total of three weeks. I’m a professor and I missed a week of teaching (a fairly grave sin in my Department, but with Covid I wasn’t even allowed on campus anyway).
In parallel with getting Covid, I got a Google Ads ban - literally less than 48 hours after I started running my first ad and on the exact morning I came down with Covid (Setback #2). One of the things I decided to invest my time in over the holiday was a new course using YouTube ads for affiliate marketing, to further expand my expertise and make some money. I worked late into the night every night while I was traveling to get everything built and set up. I stayed up late in the hotel on the drive back home to turn my ads on and get them running. And less than 48 hours later - banned (for one of my marketing companies, not me personally). And I lost all the appeals.
So the theme for January 2022 had been setbacks. But I went back to work the last week of January and picked up where I left off with my two new clients from December. Despite being sick and being out of my day job, I met weekly with each client all through January and started getting their build out going. It was slower than I could have done if I was healthy (Setback #3), but we got moving. And they were clients I knew from the local real estate investor community, so I think I got a bit of a break because of the personal relationship.
I was back at work less than a week in late January when Tragedy struck. On Thursday, I got a call that my 71 yo mother was taken to the emergency room. I left the next morning to go see her and take care of her. She died less than two weeks later. We got her out of the hospital and got her home, which was her wish. All the family got to see her before she passed. But I didn’t step foot in my own house (or town) for over a month from the morning I left when she was in the hospital. My bandwidth dropped to zero (maybe negative). I called my boss and told him I’d be back when I could be and until then, deal with it (thank God for tenure). I told my two clients I needed a few weeks and I shut all business activities down. The rest of February was consumed with the funeral, getting control of the house, finances, and estate (I’m the Executor), and dealing with my a$$hole brother who thinks he’s entitled to anything he wants because he’s older than me.
I basically didn’t resurface in my own life until March and I’ve spent the next three months trying to dig my way out. I got back to my day job to at least take care of my teaching and some research. And to get a graduate student finished with her dissertation and PhD (and graduated in early May). I got FB Ads up and running for both my clients - for one, the ads were so successful and they got so many leads, they had to turn them off because the company couldn’t handle that many leads at one time. And of course, dealing with the estate and cleaning out an out-of-town house I now own half of has also been a huge time suck.
So I am just now truly coming up for air in 2022 to start thinking about my businesses and what’s next for me. Everything is basically already shut down except existing obligations, which are fairly light. So I feel like I’m starting over from zero.
I have been taking some time to think. To reassess. And to process the fact that I’m not in the same place I was 6-months ago. And the place I’m in now is one I’ve never been in before (see below).
Reassessing:
While I was starting to earn some money from running FB Ads for real estate investors, I was and am still having some doubts about carrying on with that business for a few reasons:
1. It’s trading time for money.
2. It’s extremely time intensive for me
3. The ads are getting much more expensive lately
4.The results are not working as well due to being at the extreme top of the cycle in RE, at least in the markets that I’m serving. I’m seeing this right now with one of my clients.
I’m also not in the same place in terms of resources as I was before.
I don’t want to sound crass or unfeeling or boastful, but the cold hard truth is that resources are no longer scarce due to my inheritances. One thing I didn’t mention is that my father also passed away in April of 2021. So in less than a year, I basically have had two multi-generational inheritances come to me (my parents were divorced and grandparents on both sides died within the last 10 years). The lion’s share of it has been earmarked, invested, and will be safely passed on to my daughters (7 and 3 yo) as Generational Wealth. But I had already been using some of my inheritance from my Dad to support my business in late 2021. And now I’m not worried about earning the next dollar to keep the businesses afloat. I can take time and actually build the business that I want.
Between the freedom I have to allocate/plan my time as a university professor and the financial resources I now have at my disposal, I feel like I have the resources to do whatever I have to do to be successful in my business and meet my goal of making >$1,000,000 per year and being able to stop trading my time for money.
So what’s next for me?
1. Restarting the YouTube-based affiliate marketing business I started on in December (and got an ads ban).
I’ve struggled with this decision because I know affiliate marketing is not a FastLane compliant business and the model I’m using is based on “push” marketing. But one of the threads I read since I got back here on the forum that really struck me is @MJ DeMarco ’s “Is this FastLane?” Thread, in which he states: “…a well executed “NON-FASTLANE” is 10,000% better than a zero-executed idea that you *think* is Fastlane.” So I’m taking action, picking up where I left off, and am committing to making it work. One of the reasons I like this particular model is that it’s both automated and highly scalable. I just need to figure out what I’m doing with YouTube. And put in the time, effort, and commitment to write good copy, make good video ads, and make good landing pages. I’ll be writing a separate post asking for help with YouTube soon. [NOTE: The Google Ads ban is on the company I was using to run the ads, not me personally. I can run ads again by forming a new company and getting a new Google Ads account, which I'm starting to do this week.]
2. Setting up at least one AirBnB by the end of the year using resources I have on hand.
One of the big trends I’ve seen in real estate investing lately that is both successful and that I like is the short term rental/AirBnB model. I had been planning to turn my Mom’s house into a multi-unit AirBnB and cash flow the shit out of it, but unfortunately the County where it’s located (Fairfax County, Virginia) has severely limited the ability to make money with AirBnB but only allowing SFHs to be rented 60 days per year. So we are going to sell it (making my a$$hole brother happy) and I’m going to use the funds to set up at least one AirBnB in my local market (Richmond, Virginia). I have resources already available to get a property and set it up; I don’t need to wait to sell my Mom’s house. I’m already looking for a property in the Richmond Metro area and so is my realtor.
3. Building the brand and long term business I’ve been thinking about for over a year now
There is a need I have seen in the market and an audience with that need that I’ve been thinking about for the last year. It’s a bit “scratch your own itch” inspired, as the idea is in the wealth space and would be targeted towards working professionals, specifically ones with a graduate or professional degree (Professors, Physicians, Lawyers, Pharmacists, Dentists, etc - basically people like myself). I’ve taken some time to go back and not just read but STUDY and take notes on specific chapters in TMF , Unscripted , 12 Months to $1 Million, and a few other books to help me outline and articulate the need, audience, solution, and brand. I’m still working on that. It’s a labor of love and a bit of a passion project, as I’m still figuring out how to really monetize and create a productocracy from the idea. But I’m finally taking action (market research, writing copy, articulating the brand and value skew) on it instead of thinking about it. I will share more in a separate post when I’m ready or when I hit a block.
The first post I read when I returned to the forum last week was @Andy Black ’s “Don’t lurk, do this instead”. I consider this my welcome back post and a first step in participating to encourage others, giving thanks and appreciation here and in my life, and as a prelude to asking for help on the things that are next for me. I look forward to contributing what I can to help others and to listening so I can learn.
This is my first post here in quite a while. I wanted to share what’s happened with me over the past 16 months now that I’m trying to return here to the Forum and participate daily in the community. Both to share my struggles, my successes, and to provide context for a few future posts that I’m planning on making.
I read TMF and Unscripted back in 2018 and 2019 as I was starting my first business (real estate investing), I didn’t work up the courage to come here to the forum until early 2021. You can learn all about me and my journey to arrive here at the forum in my Intro Post.
In 2021, my goal was to start really learning digital marketing and start a new business in the online space. Like many people starting out, I bought a few courses to start learning some skills. I got busy executing and stopped coming to the forum (bad on me), but I wanted to gain some experience doing things. I tried my hand at digital publishing (was ok), eComm (a program so horrible I got my money back), and then started learning email marketing with the goal of trying some affiliate marketing (I know, I can hear the groans now…).
The journey through email marketing led me to invest some time learning Facebook Ads (starting around May 2021) as a traffic source. FB Ads is something I had been looking at but never quite got started as part of lead generation for my real estate business. So once I really got the fundamentals of FB Ads down, I decided to take a real run at using them for Motivated Seller Lead Generation in Real Estate Investing.
Fortunately I had a friend that I had partnered with on some deals that was willing to try FB Ads with me. We made an agreement that I’d do the tech work, he would pay the ad spend, he would work the leads, and we would split the profits. I charged him a nominal fee each month just to cover the costs of some software.
Working with him led to a word-of-mouth recommendation to another investor, and I started doing similar work for them. These two investors in effect served as my case studies (or Guinea pigs) to develop the systematic process I would use to do a tech setup for FB Ads for other investors.
By August 2021, I had these two investors up and running solid ads and I wanted to expand to a larger audience and work with more investors. This led me to think about using a high-ticket coaching/consulting model to do this, as it's more of a service than a product. So I got some training in that arena in Aug-Oct 2021 to learn to brand and market my service and get more clients.
Those three months were grueling. I tried doing organic traffic and outreach on Facebook, which I totally hated and completely sucked at because it felt so artificial and like push marketing. I started my own Facebook group and got overwhelmed by the schedule of trying to write and post content and doing live streams (I HATE doing videos…). But I did it. I stuck with it. I wouldn’t let anything stop me from doing what I needed to do to succeed.
I persevered through December and was rewarded with a Christmas present that I was very grateful for - I signed two new clients at the end of December for a total of $16,000 ($7500 & $8500) in revenue. I had preliminary meetings with them before Christmas to start gathering information and planning, but I was traveling for the holidays. So I told them we’d start the serious work in the first week of January.
I was stoked. And I was poised to use the success as the jumping off point to totally rock 2022.
And then Setbacks and Tragedy struck.
The day after I returned from traveling the first week of January, I came down with Covid (Setback #1). My case of covid itself wasn’t too bad, but I also got a secondary sinus infection just as I was about to go back to work. I was out of work for a total of three weeks. I’m a professor and I missed a week of teaching (a fairly grave sin in my Department, but with Covid I wasn’t even allowed on campus anyway).
In parallel with getting Covid, I got a Google Ads ban - literally less than 48 hours after I started running my first ad and on the exact morning I came down with Covid (Setback #2). One of the things I decided to invest my time in over the holiday was a new course using YouTube ads for affiliate marketing, to further expand my expertise and make some money. I worked late into the night every night while I was traveling to get everything built and set up. I stayed up late in the hotel on the drive back home to turn my ads on and get them running. And less than 48 hours later - banned (for one of my marketing companies, not me personally). And I lost all the appeals.
So the theme for January 2022 had been setbacks. But I went back to work the last week of January and picked up where I left off with my two new clients from December. Despite being sick and being out of my day job, I met weekly with each client all through January and started getting their build out going. It was slower than I could have done if I was healthy (Setback #3), but we got moving. And they were clients I knew from the local real estate investor community, so I think I got a bit of a break because of the personal relationship.
I was back at work less than a week in late January when Tragedy struck. On Thursday, I got a call that my 71 yo mother was taken to the emergency room. I left the next morning to go see her and take care of her. She died less than two weeks later. We got her out of the hospital and got her home, which was her wish. All the family got to see her before she passed. But I didn’t step foot in my own house (or town) for over a month from the morning I left when she was in the hospital. My bandwidth dropped to zero (maybe negative). I called my boss and told him I’d be back when I could be and until then, deal with it (thank God for tenure). I told my two clients I needed a few weeks and I shut all business activities down. The rest of February was consumed with the funeral, getting control of the house, finances, and estate (I’m the Executor), and dealing with my a$$hole brother who thinks he’s entitled to anything he wants because he’s older than me.
I basically didn’t resurface in my own life until March and I’ve spent the next three months trying to dig my way out. I got back to my day job to at least take care of my teaching and some research. And to get a graduate student finished with her dissertation and PhD (and graduated in early May). I got FB Ads up and running for both my clients - for one, the ads were so successful and they got so many leads, they had to turn them off because the company couldn’t handle that many leads at one time. And of course, dealing with the estate and cleaning out an out-of-town house I now own half of has also been a huge time suck.
So I am just now truly coming up for air in 2022 to start thinking about my businesses and what’s next for me. Everything is basically already shut down except existing obligations, which are fairly light. So I feel like I’m starting over from zero.
I have been taking some time to think. To reassess. And to process the fact that I’m not in the same place I was 6-months ago. And the place I’m in now is one I’ve never been in before (see below).
Reassessing:
While I was starting to earn some money from running FB Ads for real estate investors, I was and am still having some doubts about carrying on with that business for a few reasons:
1. It’s trading time for money.
2. It’s extremely time intensive for me
3. The ads are getting much more expensive lately
4.The results are not working as well due to being at the extreme top of the cycle in RE, at least in the markets that I’m serving. I’m seeing this right now with one of my clients.
I’m also not in the same place in terms of resources as I was before.
I don’t want to sound crass or unfeeling or boastful, but the cold hard truth is that resources are no longer scarce due to my inheritances. One thing I didn’t mention is that my father also passed away in April of 2021. So in less than a year, I basically have had two multi-generational inheritances come to me (my parents were divorced and grandparents on both sides died within the last 10 years). The lion’s share of it has been earmarked, invested, and will be safely passed on to my daughters (7 and 3 yo) as Generational Wealth. But I had already been using some of my inheritance from my Dad to support my business in late 2021. And now I’m not worried about earning the next dollar to keep the businesses afloat. I can take time and actually build the business that I want.
Between the freedom I have to allocate/plan my time as a university professor and the financial resources I now have at my disposal, I feel like I have the resources to do whatever I have to do to be successful in my business and meet my goal of making >$1,000,000 per year and being able to stop trading my time for money.
So what’s next for me?
1. Restarting the YouTube-based affiliate marketing business I started on in December (and got an ads ban).
I’ve struggled with this decision because I know affiliate marketing is not a FastLane compliant business and the model I’m using is based on “push” marketing. But one of the threads I read since I got back here on the forum that really struck me is @MJ DeMarco ’s “Is this FastLane?” Thread, in which he states: “…a well executed “NON-FASTLANE” is 10,000% better than a zero-executed idea that you *think* is Fastlane.” So I’m taking action, picking up where I left off, and am committing to making it work. One of the reasons I like this particular model is that it’s both automated and highly scalable. I just need to figure out what I’m doing with YouTube. And put in the time, effort, and commitment to write good copy, make good video ads, and make good landing pages. I’ll be writing a separate post asking for help with YouTube soon. [NOTE: The Google Ads ban is on the company I was using to run the ads, not me personally. I can run ads again by forming a new company and getting a new Google Ads account, which I'm starting to do this week.]
2. Setting up at least one AirBnB by the end of the year using resources I have on hand.
One of the big trends I’ve seen in real estate investing lately that is both successful and that I like is the short term rental/AirBnB model. I had been planning to turn my Mom’s house into a multi-unit AirBnB and cash flow the shit out of it, but unfortunately the County where it’s located (Fairfax County, Virginia) has severely limited the ability to make money with AirBnB but only allowing SFHs to be rented 60 days per year. So we are going to sell it (making my a$$hole brother happy) and I’m going to use the funds to set up at least one AirBnB in my local market (Richmond, Virginia). I have resources already available to get a property and set it up; I don’t need to wait to sell my Mom’s house. I’m already looking for a property in the Richmond Metro area and so is my realtor.
3. Building the brand and long term business I’ve been thinking about for over a year now
There is a need I have seen in the market and an audience with that need that I’ve been thinking about for the last year. It’s a bit “scratch your own itch” inspired, as the idea is in the wealth space and would be targeted towards working professionals, specifically ones with a graduate or professional degree (Professors, Physicians, Lawyers, Pharmacists, Dentists, etc - basically people like myself). I’ve taken some time to go back and not just read but STUDY and take notes on specific chapters in TMF , Unscripted , 12 Months to $1 Million, and a few other books to help me outline and articulate the need, audience, solution, and brand. I’m still working on that. It’s a labor of love and a bit of a passion project, as I’m still figuring out how to really monetize and create a productocracy from the idea. But I’m finally taking action (market research, writing copy, articulating the brand and value skew) on it instead of thinking about it. I will share more in a separate post when I’m ready or when I hit a block.
The first post I read when I returned to the forum last week was @Andy Black ’s “Don’t lurk, do this instead”. I consider this my welcome back post and a first step in participating to encourage others, giving thanks and appreciation here and in my life, and as a prelude to asking for help on the things that are next for me. I look forward to contributing what I can to help others and to listening so I can learn.
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