I've Just Resigned From My Job

Its encouraging!
Thanks.

I have taken a decision to quit my job 6 months ago.

Congratulations! You have just joined the new rich who make huge fortune online and get to enjoy both financial freedom and time freedom. It's a great blessing to be an Internet Entrepreneur.

Maxcl,

Congratulations to you. Leaving the ordinary workforce is a real accomplishment.

May I make one suggestion ...

You said, "Plan is to work 3 days a week, and then spend rest of the week with my wife and 5 month old son."

While that plan is commendable, I would suggest that you might want to work a little harder while you're still young and enthusiastic. Your plan sounds like semi-retirement to me.

With a brand new daily routine and a babe in arms, I would think it best to continue to work full time (at least 40 hrs/week) in your new career and build your business up. Save your money for the future. What are you going to do with 4 days a week left open?

I guess I'm saying that you are in a very enviable position with extra time on your hands. Why not secure your financial future by continuing to work hard while you're young? There is plenty of time ahead for the Internet lifestyle. You can still work a good 5 days a week and have plenty of time to be with family. Your Internet business could be here today and gone tomorrow. You know the saying "make hay while the sun shines."

Just a few reflections from someone who sees a lot more miles in the rear view mirror than in the windshield ...

Good luck to you,

Steve

Max,

I think what I am suggesting about continuing to work hard while you're young comes from seeing the ups and downs of personal economic challenges, health issues and expenses (which always seem to hit later in life), and the lack of saving for retirement that is so widespread in society.

Your life is yours right now and you can choose to kick back if you want. But there may come a time when, for whatever reason, your Internet self employment may not cover your needs.

Internet businesses collapse for some folks almost without warning.

What I and others are saying is that you have the opportunity, right now, to build up your reserves, grow your business, and put something away for tougher days ahead.

You can still enjoy a wonderful life, have lots of time with your family, and work your business at the same time. It's much easier to be employable, or build a business, or start from scratch when you're young. You don't want to be in the position where you have to do those things when you're 60.

Here's to wise choices,

Steve

That's awesome!

Excellent. Another thing that I advised small business owners to do is to document their processes and procedures. And have it done in a way where someone could read through them and keep your business afloat in case something happens to you.

People don't like to talk about it and people put it off, but it's something people should do as soon as their business shows some stability.

RoD

OK so here's my story, I doubt it will unlock any secrets but perhaps could inspire or generate some comments. As a disclaimer, worked for a number of years as a web designer so think that gave me a good head start in IM.

A few years ago I went through a messy divorce which left me in quite a bit of debt. Whilst I had a job for a very well known global technology company it still wasn't enough to get these debts paid off... so decided to look at ways to make money online.

My first project was an exercise bike review website. I made a few mistakes... firstly I targeted the UK market. Should have targeted the US market due to the higher traffic numbers - however, it taught me how to use Wordpress, set up hosting, and also join affiliate networks that were selling these products.
My second mistake on that project was to use real spammy linking networks - do you remember Build My Rank? Well I used that for link building, Google came a knocking and I went from making £250 a month to £50.

But, I could now see that it was possible to make money online.

What I decided to do was look at the tech products I knew about from my 9 to 5 job... and then used networks such as Commission Junction to find relevant offers. Because I knew the products it let me really create compelling and targeted content - but this time I was hitting the US market.
I was earning perhaps $2000 dollars a month via IM in 2011, but in 2012 things kind of went nuclear overnight and since then have been on a ever increasing income stream.

Fast forward to 2013 and I have around 14 websites. Some are related to things like coupon codes, some are review sites, some are 1 pagers, some health niche, generally a broad spectrum of stuff - what I do sometimes is find a website that works, and then create a new version of it so I can start to dominate the SERPS.

My monthly revenues are now in the $20,000 dollar a month bracket. I've managed to pay my debts, buy a great new car, and have a very privileged life where I don't need to worry too much about bills.

However, I know nothing in life is guaranteed and so have only decided to quit my job this month after saving most of my affiliate income over the last year to give me a security fall back in case Google comes knocking again.

Now I am going solo I will be looking to expand on my portfolio of sites, go into different niches, and also look to put something back into the Warrior Forum in terms of how I do affiliate marketing using networks such as Commission Junction - these guys are my biggest payers. Once I get some time I will post up some detailed tips and guides on how I run my IM business which I hope will help some of you on here.

Good luck to your decision! hope everything will be favorable on your part in your internet marketing career.

Ha ha true.

Although I quit, my contract has a 3 month notice period written into it so I am still a slave for a little while yet!

When you do it the right way - quitting is a great feeling.

I congratulate you on your common sense. You waited until you had savings in place and until you felt you could rely on your online income.

That's not taking a risk - that's grabbing an opportunity.

How does it feel with your buttocks hanging out the window everyday? I never want to feel anything else.(LOL) I'm trying not to swear because I read the thread on cursing. Don't want anyone to call me a pottymouth. (duh)

Congrats maxcl! I love hearing stories like that.

One piece of advice I would give to you is to start diversifying more online. It sounds like you have a lot of your eggs in the Google / SEO basket. Which of course is very risky, from a "financial security" perspective. Things can change fast online, and often with little or no warning.

If I were you, I would start learning about and experimenting with other types of traffic and income generation strategies (PPC, list-building, video marketing, media buys, product creation, etc). You want to get to the point to where if 1 particular type of traffic source or income generation method dries up, you won't lose any sleep at night, because you will have others to fall back on.

Good luck moving forward! I haven't had a "regular" job in about 5 years now... it's a great feeling.

Thank you Marc. I must admit that I was reluctant to actually say how much I was earning because I am very private when it comes to my online business. But at the same time thought that I am proud of what I have achieved so wanted to share it with like minds.

I don't even tell my own close friends how much I earn. So that's my character.

I would love to know how someone who earns a certain amount of money is meant to behave - I can tell you it's not changed me and never would.

Outstanding! Welcome to the "work from home" club.

Good luck to ya.

Hi Maxcl

I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU for sharing your story and honesty in such a public arena with no agenda.

OK so thanks for the comments.

I must admit it does irritate me some what that you and one other person have now said that I don't sound like someone who earns $20,000 a month.

I can't get my head around that, especially as you reference if I was earning that amount of money I would not then want to work 3 days a week?

My whole aim was to give myself a better work and life balance... and not have to work every hour under the sun.

I've managed to get myself into that position after working my arse off for 3 years as well as holding down a full-time job and now want to actually enjoy other parts of my life instead being sat in front of a PC 24/7.

I have nothing to gain by coming onto the WF and start offering a load of BS to a bunch of strangers you or other people on this forum. I am half tempted to screenshot my affiliate accounts, but I guess you would then say I'd photoshopped it so again utterly pointless.

As I said, I don't even tell my friends how much I earn and am humble with them. So why I would need to come onto a forum and start acting like I am some kind of 20k a month hero I don't know.

If you noticed I didn't reference my earnings in my original post... it was simply after some consideration.

I gave up a $100K a year job this week so you can believe me I wouldn't have done that unless I had hit the numbers I've quoted.

Thank you, yes they are pure affiliates sites ranked with SEO so 95% profit typically.

I managed to build up relationships with the account managers at CJ to open me up to more exclusive offers and really laser target some KWs that whilst didn't have huge searches, were very much buying KWs where the customer was just about to hit the pay button.

I was very much putting myself into the mind of the consumer and thinking that way... and most the products I market are over the $150 mark meaning better commissions. Some products were offering up to 50% commission on some digital download items I promote so made for relatively easy products to rank.

I focus on the buying KWs - when that person is 90% ready to purchase. so for example products which might have KWs such as "discount" or "half price" in them.

this is crucial.

Quitting your job and not backing yourself up is stupid, and could cause you financial ruin.

When I quit my job several years ago, I had a few thousands in the bank. But I did blow about $910 on PPC, without making a sale.

These day I realise the important of building a business for the long term. A mailing list, and bigger monthly membership sites. So $910 goes a long way for me nowadays, big time.

I think you should have at least 4 - 6 months funds before you quit, or even make sure you are earning residual income before you quit.

Just think if you have a membership site at 9.95 per month, you only need 100 members paying you to bring in $1000 a month, then you can use that money to get more traffic, and more subscribers. I DId this back in 2008 and had hundreds of members paying me $9.95 for a cat site, and sold that site for a motza.

So my point is back yourself up financially first, then go from there.

Thanks for the inspiration and making the dream come true!
If you have any more words on how to get there, they will be greatly appreciated.
Best wishes to you and your family.
Enjoy your life!

Awesome - where in Asia did you move Brett?