120 Days Employed & Settled - Time for the Sideline

Since returning back to work in September 2007 after trying and failing to make it big online and deciding it would be better to be employed and work on the Internet as a side project, 4 months have passed. I’m settled in my job and it’s not difficult to get up for at all. Phew. It’s time to develop the sideline I mentioned.

After analyzing the statistics of a 330 page content site I sold to a friend a few years ago it became clear that over 95% of his search traffic was coming from keywords that I didn’t even target - and believe me I targeted lots of small ones with that particular site - meaning purely on long-tail he was picking up over 6,500 keywords per month and over 1,000 visitors per day. All from 330 articles.

For my next project I will be developing a monster content site on a high-dollar subject combined with my own clickbank product.

I already have the product and have contracted free-lancers for roughly 20 articles per week and now that I’m able to invest in the project with money I’m earning from my job, there’s no reason this site won’t be crammed with over 1,000 articles before the year is out.

That is all for now. Wish me luck.

Returned Back to Full Time Employment after 5 Years

That’s right! I’ve just completed my first week of employment - I’m working for a company again. It was quite a shell-shocking head-fuzzing experience after working for myself since 2002 and trying to hit gold online.

I even did optional overtime this evening until 7.30pm and walked away quite pleased with myself having learnt most of the ropes of what I’m doing and managed an almost error-free day.

I thought working was going to be another soul-crushing and depressing affair and approached with caution not knowing if I could stick it, but they’re all a good bunch and my supervisor isn’t a c*nt like my last boss, far from it in fact. I’m quite possibly the most miserable bastard there, but I’m already feeling myself being assimilated - it won’t be long before I’m as just as happy as everyone else!

After the hell of debt, bankruptcy and an uncertain future.. I’m now officially debt-free, earning a regular wage at a secure job and finally I’m able to realistically plan to move in to my own gaff early next year and I will officially have a life to call my own!

Fair enough I’m on minimum wage but the idea is to start a digital sideline on the Internet to subsidize my income and continue to do bits and bobs for my good friend Pilkster when I can spare a few hours here and there - and never will I consider replacing my full-time job for Internet gold again. This job’s too damn good to let go.

Who’d of thunk it!

Revisiting a Venture with Experience after Bankruptcy

When I was 18 years old (I’m now 24) in 2002 I ran an e-commerce store importing specific collectible items from the USA and selling them to customers in the United Kingdom.

I made many mistakes during this first online venture, which were:

Buying as many varied items as I could without thinking whether or not customers would actually want them - I was under the illusion of the more variations I bought, however silly, that I would be able to sell more. This led to thousands of pounds worth of stock sitting in a storage unit that I couldn’t get rid of and had to sell in bulk for way under the price I actually paid for them.

…There was my first lesson in to market research.

There were only a few items that sold well but I ran out of these after a few weeks and business grinded to a halt - the first few weeks things flew - I had $200-700 per day in pure profit, but it didn’t last when I run out of the good stock.

Another problem was I was using Worldpay to take payments and they didn’t send me the funds from payments for 6 weeks so I hit a massive cash-flow problem that I hadn’t planned or made provisions for, as I wasn’t able to re-stock with the items that customers actually wanted.

…There was my lesson in planning finances and the importance of cash-flow.

Due to this error of buying items that simply wouldn’t sell and not being able to afford to re-stock with the hot sellers, it meant I ended up going in to a lot of debt as I was also having to pay $900/month in rent for the office and storage (12 month contract) for all the many swords - also because I carried on living as normal and neglected the problem, which ultimately led to my bankruptcy, which I was dis-charged from last year in 2006.

…There were too many lessons to mention! *groan*

Now that I’m debt free, I’m going to start-up a similar business selling the same items but approaching the whole venture from an angle of experience.

This time around:

• Since I’m debt-free now, I will not borrow or lend any money for the venture from any source whatsoever.
• I will not purchase expensive $1,000 e-commerce software or sign-up to an expensive $900 payment processor that only pays 6 weeks after the transaction, instead I will use PayPal. Money saved and great for cash-flow.
• Instead of buying hundreds of items worth $16,000 in wholesale price including ridiculous items I now know will not sell, I will buy a handful of the items for $100 that I know sell well (because I sold them well in the first few weeks before) through PPC marketing with a high conversion.
• There is also the fact I am now far more experienced in online marketing. Back then, I had no idea about sales copy, building trust, creating value, call to actions and utilizing the back-end and previous customers to generate more business.

You may think I’m insane re-starting up a business that led me to bankruptcy, but the difference is, it’s only costing me $150 at most to test the waters 4 years later in the same industry.. and I won’t be making any of the same mistakes again.

I don’t believe failed business ventures are like ex-girlfriends, and I believe by going about it the right way, by re-visiting this particular one there’s a chance for success that I can’t let slip simply because of some very silly mistakes I made previously.

Here’s a quote I plucked off Google on mistakes which made me laugh…

“Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from” - Al Franken

Fuck The Irish - It’s MY Birthday!

That’s right - I can be an attention-seeking self-absorbed twat when I want to be, so it’s my birthday today. I’m 24 (although I went through all of last year thinking I was 24) and it’s my day, and I thought random people who come across my blog ought to know this fact. Who’s St. Patrick anyway?

Quoted from Wikipedia: The person who was to become Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was born in Roman Britain about AD 385. His given name was Maewyn, and he almost didn’t get the job of bishop of Ireland because he lacked the required scholarship.

Far from being a saint, until he was 16, he considered himself a pagan. At that age, he was sold into slavery by a group of Irish marauders that raided his village. During his captivity, he became closer to Christianity.

He escaped from slavery after six years and went to Gaul where he studied in the monastery under St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre for a period of twelve years. During his training he became aware that his calling was to convert the pagans to Christianity.

He wished to return to Ireland and to convert the native pagans to Christianity, but his superiors instead appointed St. Palladius. However, two years later Palladius transferred to Scotland. Patrick, having adopted that Christian name earlier, was then appointed as second bishop to Ireland.

Patrick was quite successful at winning converts which upset the Celtic Druids. Patrick was arrested several times, but escaped each time. He traveled throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries across the country. He also set up schools and churches which would aid him in his conversion of the Irish country to Christianity.

His mission in Ireland lasted for thirty years. After that time, Patrick retired to County Down. He died on March 17 in AD 461. That day has been commemorated as St. Patrick’s Day ever since.

Sounds like a bit of a cunt to me.

My parents inform me the doctor at the hospital I was born in suggest they called me Patrick - thank God they stuck with Pete I say. Pat’s a snake-chasing raising-people-from-the-dead pussy sort of name if you ask me.

Enjoy my day and have a beer on me.

The Pilkster decided to celebrate my birthday with beer and curry. Nice. Very nice.