The past three years have certainly been a journey. I’ve learned a lot. Like, a ton. Probably several college degrees worth of information.
Learning is amazing. You should never stop learning. But there comes a point where you can learn so much that your vision gets blurred.
I’ve learned what it takes to make it in internet based businesses. I’ve learned how to do it through e-commerce, SEO, web development, digital advertising, coaching, SAAS — you name it, I can be successful with it.
But there comes a time when you’ve learned enough information, and you don’t get any more value unless you try the things you have learned. That, for me, was the Blacklet. I learned a lot more by doing that then any book can teach me.
One of the things it taught me is that I need more money to be able to pull something like that off. The only way to make more money is to work more — for money.
So rather than focusing on lofty long-term goals, there are some short-term things I need to figure out in my life. And all of those things require work, not more learning.
Narrowing My Focus
Being an expert in so many things is both a blessing and a curse. I feel like I can do anything. If someone asks me for help, I usually can offer them some value and domain expertise, even if it’s not my biggest interest.
But when it comes to building something sustainable and long-term, I struggle because that feeling of being able to do anything makes me want to do everything.
If you chase two rabbits, you will catch neither one. — Russian Proverb
So what should I build? Should I think incredibly long term and build something meaningful? Or should I work to get short term gains in order to clear debts and increase my capability of freedom?
I think both — but not at the same time.
To Move Forward, I Have To Step Back
Obviously, for the context of walking, that statement makes no sense. But for my situation, it does.
I have a lot of student loan debt. It’s something that I don’t like in my life. It causes my family stress and makes things harder than they should be.
That’s my reality right now, whether I choose to accept it or not.
So I think that should be my first attack point for the thing that I choose to do.
Once I am debt free, my family has options. We can live on significantly less money, and can afford to take bigger risks.
That would be an incredible feeling — and would be something that I can achieve with certainty. It’s a short enough goal that I can see the end in sight.
But I don’t think that should be what my whole life is about.
I don’t want to have things go back to normal once I am debt free. I want that to be a launching pad for success in my family. I want to use that as an asset — something that makes me less dependent on the world and institutions.
So basically, I have a 5 year and a lifetime goal. The 5 year goal is to be debt free. The lifetime goal is to build something amazingly valuable that helps people.
The 5 year goal is first, and the lifetime goal is after. It’s not at the same time.
Jeff Bezos started Amazon when he was 30 (and now he’s the richest man in the world at 53), so that’s a number I can work with. My 5 year goal of being debt free puts me right at 30 years old.
Short Term Plans
So I have established that I’m working on the 5 year goal. It’s going to take a lot of work, and it’s also going to have to be work that is put in the right things.
Let me explain.
Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing. — Peter Drucker
I don’t want to just work another job. I want to build an asset. Something that I can continue building and scaling even after I am debt free. If I ditch it — fine. If I love it, then it’s amazing to have full control of it.
There are certain things I procrastinate on, and other things I am super excited to work on. Doing a load of laundry takes me a few days, and building a full blown website from scratch takes me a few days. I’ll let you figure out what I like doing more.
But even further than that, I don’t just want to make websites and throw it out into the wind. Every action I take needs to be calculated and with purpose.
There are two ‘easy’ avenues to make money online that you can learn for free; SEO, and web development. Things like digital advertising and e-commerce require some upfront money to get started and get experience. You can learn them for free, but not put them into practice.
So those are my starting points — SEO and web development. And I think I will focus on SEO to begin with.
SEO is powerful, and is more obviously beneficial for businesses. A new shiny website does nothing for you unless you have people visiting it.
I’d like to transition from SEO into digital advertising eventually, but that’s getting ahead of myself. I need to establish a baseline and increase income.
So SEO it is, but who will I serve?
Forward Thinking
Dealerships. Specifically, used car dealerships.
The reason for this is mostly two-fold. Reason one, is because used car dealerships are more approachable than new car dealerships (and tend to need more help), and reason two is because it is mind-blowing how easy it is to target people on FB Ads who want to buy a car (and most dealerships are not tapping into it!).
I got this idea a few months ago, and I can’t shake it. I don’t have a particular interest in cars, but I have always liked them. And I know a lot about working with cars, so I am knowledgeable in the space (I have kept a few clunkers alive for far too long).
So, since I eventually want to transition (or at least include) FB Ads in my services, I want to pick a market that is easy to target on FB.
Not only that, but every car that exists today will be around for another 20 years, so I’m safe to use this for my 5 year goal.
So as of today, I’m introducing http://carfunnels.com.
How I Will Do It
Rank and rent. While I’m doing that, I will cold email and call local dealerships around me, and I will be blogging and doing research.
Basically, I will rank for terms using SEO, and then rent my high-rankings to people who want more traffic and leads.
I live in Rochester, NY. So, I want to rank for ‘used cars rochester ny’. That way, when I rank in the top spot (which takes a month or two), I can rent that spot to a local dealership that is looking for some fresh blood.
This is an ‘easy’ way to get an extra $1k a month with little to no work after it’s in place.
I always put ‘easy’ in quotes because it’s relatively easy for me.
While that is cooking, I will get started cold emailing and calling all of the local dealerships around me. I’ll pitch them my services to them at a lower cost than the industry standard so I can get some experience.
I plan on getting most of that information from the https://bbb.org.
I hope to get a few clients for SEO, and I might even be able to get a few from the web development side. The web development side is much harder to convince, because it’s quite an overhaul. A lot of SEO can be done without even touching the website.
I might even be able to convince them to put all of their stock in to Facebook and I can run ads for them (getting ahead of myself). For a smaller dealership, managing something like a FB Page is much easier than managing your own website.
Also, while I am reaching out to potential clients, I will be writing about SEO, web development and FB Ads for car dealerships. The purpose of this is to become and authority in the space, and to make me seem like I have experience.
I’ll be doing this over at http://carfunnels.com.
What I Need To Do Now
I need to build out my FB page, make a website (blog + rank and rent), and gather potential clients in the Rochester area.
This is fun!