Why should you continue reading this page, this blog or anything I have to say?
Am I one of those online “gurus” with a rags-to-riches story who now has 3 Lamborghini’s, 2 mansions and makes over 100k per month and will show you how YOU CAN DO THIS TOO by simply reading a PDF which I will give to you for $7.95?
I WILL TEACH YOU TO PRINT MONEY
(NOT.)
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for you) that’s not me… Sorry to disappoint.
Instead, I’m the guy who spent years fumbling around with different methods, trying new things, until I finally found a system that worked. I’m someone you can use as your case study to apply your own life-hacks to. I am your test subject when it comes to internet marketing strategies & methods, volunteering to test-drive the glittery push button systems, copy + paste the newest strategies and may come out successful…. Or may not.
Let me be the guinea-pig and test new products for you.
My goal for this blog is to put all the latest gimmicks, tricks and tactics in the internet marketing world through the ringer. To test-drive it all so I can show you what works and what doesn’t.
I’ve spent years wading through all the slime and crap products online that I have developed a keen sense for sorting out the good stuff from the bad…
Don’t get me wrong… I’m not doing it just for you. I’m set on seeing this through anyway as I’m also looking for those golden nuggets too. I will be documenting my results right here so if you’re interested in saving your precious time & money by letting me do the ground work then please subscribe and follow along in my journey.
There are hundreds upon thousands of strategies out there and everyday there seems to be more & more new ones coming out. Most of them with the same promises, mind you.
If you’re anything like me, you probably have bought at least 3 of these methods, given them a crack… only to find that they don’t work as advertised.
Before you know it you get sucked into the next “shiny object” as the theory sounds legit and the results look amazing. You try it out for a few days and find that you may actually be losing money on all these additional costs (paid traffic, hosting etc) that were conveniently left out of the conversation when you purchased it.
I know the feeling of spinning your wheels and getting nowhere...
If you’re here by now you’re pretty fed up with the whole system and are probably doubting that anyone (apart from those guru’s) can actually make any money online.
That’s how I feel anyway and I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone with my opinion…. But I am still curious, I have had some success in the past online and I know other people are doing this and being very successful with it… So I ask – why can’t I achieve that too?
So This Is My Story.
At the time of writing this I’m 33 years old and currently living in Melbourne, Australia.
My journey with internet marketing started in 2010 when I was still in college, studying to become an environmental engineer.
I was in my second-last year of my bachelor’s degree when I went to a internship interview for a large mining company, Exxon Mobil.
The internship was to work in a Pacific country called Papua New Guinea, on a new gas plant they were building. It was a multi-billion dollar development in this resource-rich region and I suited the role perfectly. They had even flown me interstate and put me up in a hotel for the interview.
My island home, Papua New Guinea!
This was exciting for me, not only for the free mini-holiday, but for the fact that I am originally from the small country, I grew up there for the first 16 years of my life and regularly visit many times a year. When I told the interviewer this I saw his face light up, when he then asked…
“We’d really like you to get started in this role… if you would be willing to be paid as a local?”
Now – keep in mind, local rates in Papua New Guinea would be many multiples lower than what I could earn working for any other engineering company in Australia.
I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I probably politely told them if it wasn’t worth my time I would look elsewhere.
I didn’t end up getting the offer after that… most likely because I turned down their crappy terms.
Me back in 2010, learning about Internet Marketing in my old bedroom...
But it left a bad taste in my mouth, and planted the seed of “I don’t want to have be a servant to make someone else rich.”
So, at the end of the year, I went home and made the decision to pause my studies indefinitely. To pursue building my own business.
Down The Rabbit Hole We Go...
Now why internet marketing? Well around the same time my own mother was getting deep into the online marketing space, buying courses left and right from many of the bug marketers of the last decade. Guys like Armand Morin, Mike Filsaime, Mike Dillard, Ryan Deiss, Russell Brunson, just to name a few.
She needed help with all the technical side of things – so I helped her out during my holiday break. That’s what got me hooked and convinced me that this is how I would build my “riches” and escape the rat race (before even starting it haha!)
Meeting my first professional marketer, Armand Morin.
All these gurus made it look so simple, just copy / paste these PDFs, link to a Clickbank product, get some free mailing list traffic and BOOM! You’re printing money baby!
So easy right?
Not quite.
The MOBE Scam (2011)
I was so new so in the industry I basically dove head first into any programs I could find. One of the first I jumped into was an MLM type opportunity called “MOBE.” It was an expensive members-only group that you had to pay a minimum of $2000 to join, going all the way up to $10k.
When it's too good to be true... it probably isn't.
Once you were in, it granted you the ability to earn commissions at the level you were joined at, along with a whole suite of marketing tutorials which was great and all, but it still felt like a bit of a ponzi scam.
After months of attempting to market the program and not getting much success with it, I dropped it and chased other “shiny objects” like CPA Marketing, Mobile App Creation, and even Social Media Marketing. I’m glad I didn’t pursue it further though, because in 2018, the FTC basically shut down the company and froze all the assets of the owners!
If you or anyone you know was affected by this, you have my sympathy.
Building An Empire (2014)
After a few years of trying every method under the sun, getting dizzy with the amount of courses I was consuming and only scraping by with what little income I was earning from odd-jobs, I decided to package all my new-found knowledge up and sell it to clients in the form of consulting.
I remember sitting down in a board room with my first client, nervous because I was trying to sell them a website that I knew you could just pay someone on Fiverr to do for $200… yet my offer was for $2000!
In the end I learned they just wanted someone they could trust to do the job, and the deal was done. It was about building relationships with people, which was a powerful lesson.
Excited after getting my first major contract signed.
With each successful contract it gave me the confidence to charge a little bit more on the next one, and eventually I had earned enough to start to hire other people to join my little company!
Meeting Manny Pacquiao after brokering a deal in 2016. He's a true gentleman!
I partnered with some friends and we hired a virtual team in the Philippines to outsource all our design work and we focused on growing our business. Our most exciting contract led us to work with the legendary boxer and senator, Manny Pacquiao (he’s a beast in the ring but such a gentleman in real life.)
All was going well, we were pulling in 6-figure contracts, I was my own boss, I chose my hours and got paid even if I didn’t want to work, but I still didn’t have the “lifestyle-freedom” I wanted when I dropped out of college all those years ago.
It All Falls Down (2020)
The start of a new decade shook up the world in a big way. Word got out of a virus running rampant in China early in the year, and within a few months, the whole world was in lockdown.
When COVID-19 hit, my business got hit alongside it. I could no longer travel to meet clients, and what clients I had left were reducing their budgets or going under completely.
We had to cut back on a lot of projects, as well as our team. Things were already slowing down in the year leading up to it, so by the time COVID hit, we had the tough choice of letting our virtual team go and breaking up the consultancy with my partners.
My humble home office when I started to get serious about my affiliate marketing business.
We all went our separate ways – in good spirits, no less – but now I had to focus on bringing in an income with the knowledge I still had.
I turned back to think on how far I had come in the last 10 years, since making that fateful decision to pursue a career in digital marketing, and realised that for the little successes I have had so far, there is still a long way to go.
A New Beginning
So that brings us to today. I’m a little older and wiser, but still hungry to achieve my goal of earning passive income online that allows me to spend time doing what I really love. Being with my wife and dogs, start a family in the near future, and travelling more (once the world opens up again.)
I’ve devoted most of time in “iso” (aka isolation aka lockdown aka COVID sucks) to learning what works NOW and how I can use my experience in marketing and consulting to build an online business. I’ve already made all the mistakes and I know who’s really worth listening to and who’s just full of hot air.
I enjoy making videos for all my followers and providing great content.
I get a lot of emails promoting new products from all the various guru’s that I have followed over the last decade. I will be reviewing them and letting you know my thoughts on the good ones worth picking up – with the hopes that you do so via my affiliate link.
Let's go on this journey together to achieve the "lifestyle-freedom" we all desire!
This way I’m finding out not only what works for me but helping others like you start off on the right foot in this confusing but highly rewarding journey.
Besides, I want to be transparent and honest about what I promote – I don’t want to be connected to anymore scams!
I might also throw in the odd vlog here or there to let you how things are going on every month or so. I’m not sure if this will be a regular feature or anything but hopefully it will give you some insight into my life and progress to inspire you, no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey.
But that’s enough from me! I hope you enjoyed reading about my journey so far and I hope to connect with you along the way.
If you have any questions for me you can always join my email list and send me an email – I promise I will reply if I can help you out.
Cheers,
Ira
My two rescue greyhounds, Boomer & Stormy!