1) Efficiency did not mention much about learning SEO. Currently investing a hell lot of time to learn it and feels like going down a rabbit hole. Is it worth the effort to master SEO? Or to continue learning copywriting?
2) Since mainstream folks are piling into crypto, is it still a good time to invest?
Thank you as always.
1) no not worth it ads kill all SEO that’s why we didn’t even bother.
2) yes 1-5% net worth all times.
i understand your reasoning – but with SEO you can do a lot of things which you can not with ads.
I made millions with it and i still get a passive income of $100k+ each month with minimal investment of time.
Was a lot of work to build the network though.
Nice feel free to drop your quick ideas on SEO maximization.
Sure.
All you need for successful SEO is good incoming links, good onpage SEO and internal linking. There are tons of guides online for this. Don´t go too much into the details, do the 20% which give you the most leverage and forget the rest. Build more sites instead.
You get good links either by buying them, sharing them with other webmasters or building your own network, preferably with expired domains which were dropped and already have a ton of backlinks. Combine all three.
Of course you need good copywriting to create a page which converts. Understand the information- and buying process of the people.
The most interesting niches for SEO is everything which Google does not allow you to place ads on. Easy to figure that out. If you do affiliate, most keywords which are forbidden to place ads on are great for SEO. Do nothing illegal though, only what Google doesn´t like. Its not your fault your site ranks for something which converts like hell and the merchant / brand wants it exclusively for himself.
People say SEO is dead since i started with SEO. It is a ton of work to build your network but at a certain point it runs on autopilot, you can travel the world and get a ton of passive income.
Good luck!
Personally, don’t agree with the commentary. I own affiliate sites in the gambling niche and make high 6-figures per year, all from organic traffic. It’s possible to make a lot of money doing SEO, you just have to pick the right niche (high commissions) and be in the top 1%.
I’m trying to take over a nano-cap public company. Only relevant experience is founding and running a much smaller company in the same industry and a strong belief I could run the other company better. How do I find and convince investors to back me on a buyout attempt?
Wow you’re way high up the chain. You’d want to look into a poison pill to protect over hostile takeovers. But if you’re private and own over 51% not sure how that matters? A bit confusing
You guys mentioned how your posts are increasingly alienating the “150k online” group. What do you think the main differential is that enables some people to break through and become truly rich while others remain in the former group?
Eventually have to sell a real product, lifestyle income only works in bull markets since it’s essentially services.
Something recurring and valuable is always going to win versus grind it out e-content that goes to zero in a recession
How do you see the next correction/recession affecting online business opportunities?
At T15 undergrad and planning on building a consulting biz to start, then switching to a more scalable model once I have proof of concept.
Love your stuff. Thanks!
Probably the same, these lifestyle income people will see revenue go down by 50% and hard times. People with money scoop up cheap real estate and stocks.
Services get killed essentially, the winners will be people with diversified types of income and people building heavy cash now. Same as 2008-2009
First of all I love your blog and your books, they’ve helped avoid many mistakes in my life.
From your writings I gather youre somewhat similar to me, individualistic, low in agreeableness and not much of a team player.
Question: what was your strategy for getting your colleagues on your side when starting out at the bottom of the totem pole. Particularly, superiors are happy with my performance, but feedback from my colleagues is bad and it’s harming my reviews.
Much appreciated
Well the easiest way is to choose the guy who is least likely to back stab you (the nerdier one). Get him to look good/promote him internally. Then you’ll have more than enough support. That said we didn’t spend a ton of time in finance so not sure how long that strategy lasts
Graduated From UVA yesterday. Starting tech sales in NYC in July. Any recommendations on how to be productive and prepare myself for starting my career over the next couple months? What would you do in the meantime.
1) read sales books
2) start making money selling online
#2 should be 90% of your time, when you’re exhausted go do number 1
read question based selling
take improv classes (asap)
read the book impro
read – fiction, history
write (twitter or memes for low commitment is easy enough if a blog or journal too much) – 90% of the emails sent are god awful btw so pretty easy to break through the noise if you can write and edit
go to every party you can and socialize
Banking associate with very little deal flow in my group. Hours are 9 to 6 or 7, but I have very little experience to get a VP promote here or at any other bank.
On the other hand, because of all the free time, I’ve made $50,000 in profit in the past year online.
Working on setting up an ecom brand with influencers. Will take about 6 to 9 months to launch.
Question:
Should I stay where I am and continue to build my business while taking on the risk of my career going nowhere?
Or should i switch to another group and work significantly more hours, which will leave a lot less time for my business?
That’s a tough call, if you think you can scale the biz then would stay. Scaling meaning $250K+ very shortly.
If you think the biz is capped, then go ahead and look (jump to another shop). This is not an easy one, our guess is jumping won’t make sense if you’re selling your own product (not affiliate).
I just made the same move as a senior associate at very poor MM firm with no deal flow, only co-managed ECM. Got promoted to VP, but the house was falling apart with rainmaker departures. Made jump to Tier-1 BB miraculously but don’t think they won’t expect you to take a year or two back. I like the business and wanted the large complex deals for experience because want to hit the gas pedal for 5-10 more years as hard as I could to see if I could make it to the 1M a year point in the career as a director. This was only possible for me if sneaking my way up at the BB or generating business at a solid MM, Boutique (hard if nobody knows firm). Was a no brainer for me because only side income was dividend checks from large net worth accumulated. Your situation depends on which path you want, but no deals = death in downturn. Don’t think necessarily safer at powerhouse BB or sub-par shop you’ve built some sweat equity at. Brand name and deal flow in this business matters big time and when market is hot, many trying to successfully make the move upstream.
1. In your post Money Making Machine, it says it will cost around 50K to start something meaningful. Providing you have a good biz idea, would you recommend starting something immediately as soon as you accumulate 50K in savings or start something quicker by initially investing around 10-20K and then keep investing a couple thousand each month moving forward (difference of 1-2 years).
2. Will be entering my final year of university this coming fall. Due to a lingering health issue, I will not be able to work or party. Can’t fund side biz nor can I have fun/improve social skills (which are already great tbh). I plan on doing reasonably well in school but obviously see no point in going overkill on marks as 4th year business marks don’t mean much (time to overkill was years 1-3). What would you do with all of my free time?
1) if you were already success as an affiliate then yes jump into the big boy leagues and start something. If you have no skills then you shouldn’t waste $50K on something where you have no value to provide
2) would earn income online. Any form possible. If you already land a career position, skip straight to learning online sales.
1. Noted, I’m definitely going to go affiliate first. If i can’t sell someone else’s product I’ll sure as hell have a hard time selling mine.
2. Will probably transcribe audio/do Fiverr tasks to get some income to fund something else. Will read everything about online sales including the sales/copywriting books from Efficiency. Thanks
Is there anything you wish you would have known about working with private label manufacturers that you did not before your first experience?
That you want to eventually do your own manufacturing, so fake copious notes on how to eventually make your own.
The margins are quite high if you can pull it off, ignoring what they are doing just costs you time.
I’m a startup founder, male in mid 30’s, who really does work +80 hours a week (no lying up). Am really quite exhausted and worn out.
Any advice / hacks for
1) maintaining health and well-being other than the advice in the book / website so far? (exercising regime, diet, green juice, fish oil)
2) leadership (managing and inspiring teams of people)
3) public speaking (get nervous speaking in large groups of people)
4) relaxing and taking time off
Thanks
not sure how to help that’s also four different questions. You should outsource your work 80 hours is just not sustainable for someone in his mid 30s
Do you see Austin competing with the Bay Area for tech talent in the near future? Heavily weighing building a startup in either city. I hate San Francisco but I can’t discount the level of talent that resides there.
Near-term, no. Maybe in a couple of decades.
1.For lightweight sites (think affiliate) is WordPress necessary? (thinking of using alternatives like Squarespace, Wix, etc.)
2.Favorite lounge/restaurant in Williamsburg?
1) WordPress is the easiest but all of those are similar/fine
2) Do not venture out there, more for people in early 20s, info would be stale.
Main Question: Should one be in (say quant) finance with the upcoming recession and how will it affect people working in that sector?
Optional : Also any advice for driven high IQ people to whom many careers look boring as hell and feel like wasting braincells? Eg even a lot of tech looks dull and boring for me and many such ppl I know
Yes quants will be fine, still profitable in downturns if you’re good.
Would say you should diversify into online sales (we know beating dead horses) but without sales skills you’ll be stuck as a quant forever. Need to have both skills.
Thank you for your response. Thats good to hear!
I am actually one of those rare numeric guys that have people skills. However, not particularly talented in this area, I needed practice. So sales could be ok to learn for me. Just not my strongest suit.
Was mostly talking about being bored on an intellectual level, ie job not being intellectually challenging Say in tech, level of numeric talent needed is not top 1%. Actually its better to be pretty smart and not absolutely razor-sharp cause youll get bored. Alot of the ideas look simple from a mathematicians point of view. Difficulty of questions and degree of technical competence for Google interviews is vastly overstated for example.
1) How do you go from ON MODE to OFF MODE and from OFF MODE to ON MODE? I am having trouble doing either when I am in one or the other. I might as well just stay in the ON MODE all the time.
2) If your work is not as technical (running a food wholesale business), do you have any suggestions on how to keep your brain and mind sharp?/Keep yourself intelligently fit sort of speak? (currently adopted a routine reading physics; lectures of Richard Feynman).
Thank you guys!
Eventually it mergers and you’re really just focused all the time. When you’re not focused you’re about to go to sleep. This is due to becoming rich and happy all the time, so the dopamine keeps you high energy all the time.
Easy answer start a secondary source of income that requires more thinking.
Make sense. Nice insight for the first one.
Brilliant on the second.
Thank you.
Age 26. Selling Cars. Recommended career path?
Move to selling homes then flipping them. Easy transition, ideally you’re selling high end cars.
Feel the need to interject as its in my wheelhouse and want to offer another option. High end cars vs mid range (used in either case as commissions are higher) won’t matter. Low turnaround on high end (market dependant). Commissions usually capped or paid flat rate to salesman plus salary on high end. If your dealer is paying you salary plus, your earning less then you should be for reasons obvious to this blog’s readership and should move on or ask to go straight commission. You can make as much or more in a busy market, selling to your average joe/jane. This clientele you will find as a whole are not as savvy, more prone to impulse and get emotional (easier to close). Bonus points if credit is sketchy and they come in with a weak hand which you don’t see to often at the boutique stores.
This way there are no caps, longer hours (more opportunities) and more gross potential because a good sales manager can steal trades easier. Not as fun at dinner parties to say your selling Ford vs Ferrari but ego won’t pay for the fun stuff.
Big margin items normally get “penciled” by the dealer, industry term for showing higher cost on the books to pay salesman less as most are paid on gross profit. Some exclusive exotic dealers even pay salary plus “production bonus”.
Terrible if your a high performer. Great for the dealer on an avg net/deal basis.
All this assumes your a top performer. If not, work to become one or your in the wrong game at any store. Its a grinding, terrible way to make a living if your in the sub 100k club which will be most of your colleagues despite what they brag about at the cooler. Put in the extra effort/hours and get in on the spits your lazy colleagues will offer because they want to go home early when the customer is late at 8 pm Saturday and buddy is hosting a bbq and beer pong tourney they NEED to get to. Bank your money, find some deals and put it towards getting your own “hustle” (is that what the kids call it now?) going. Pro tip, you can find these guys to run over and split deals with in the middle of the board as they are good enough to not be in the bottom then get complacent once their monthly nut (usually 3-5k) is covered. They will also brag about that “one killer month” they had last year when things were “busier”. Just agree, claim your going to go get lunch and go find a customer somewhere.
Well aware there are exceptions of course. Reality is a top luxury guy still makes money and would do so in a domestic dealer as well. Im just saying you don’t have to sell luxury to make money by any means. An argument could be made for networking opportunities on the luxury side but you can do that after hours regardless.
Finally I do agree wholeheartedly making moves on real estate on the side however. A sizeable portion of my net worth was made there. Outwork your peers, learn the sales trade as it’s transferable to everything else you will ever do, including real estate and use those skills to crush your side buis. Bigger picture.
Source: Over 20 years in the game. Top performer then dealership owner. Dealerships pay for the real estate under them and help with acquiring more. Yes I still help the guys desk deals when I’m around, because even after 40 I love the rush and keeps me sharp. Hope this helps.
Hey WSPs, are you buying any stocks/indexes any more or holding?
Thanks, have a great week!
Haven’t been buying since end of last year (just holding), cash, crypto, real estate
Mostly cash
What’s your favourite wine/champagne?
Ace spades
Would consider debunking get-rich-quick schemes? Not MLM or pyramid schemes but like penny stocks pump and dumps. Go through the operational side and the back-end side. How to spot a scam and take advantage if possible.
Way too long of an answer, honestly if someone isn’t smart enough to spot blatant scams they aren’t worth educating in general
Thanks again!
Going to be starting my full time career soon. I’ve noticed that I have lost touch with a lot of people since high school/college because there’s not a lot to relate.
You mentioned about how your contact list should be changing as you level up in your previous posts. Besides meeting people at work, gym, and going to industry conference, where else do you meet people?
It also seems an online business (1 man team) can seem lonely at time if that’s all you focus on.
That’s really all it is, as you move up socioeconomically the people you interact with changes by default. No need to look for anything
Best course/authority figure to learn from on flipping websites?
None. You either have the skills and identify assets or you don’t have skills go in blind and lose money
Do you recommend physical therapy and have any info on how to determine if one is good?
Don’t have this issue can’t help, see a professional who trains top tier athletes
I’m 25 years old, just graduated with my PharmD. Doing a MBA (from a small school so not prestigious at all).
Any good performance-based pharmacy/healthcare careers you guys know of? My talent is synthesis (very good at connecting the dots/breaking down any problem into its simplest parts). I’ve been researching like a madman, but am curious if you guys know of anything especially promising.
Keep up the good work!
Pharma sals but usually for attractive women. Look for anything *expensive* medical product sales.
Chlorella: do you prefer powder or tablets? And why?
Powder goes faster to blood stream, pills are too slow
Any tip on where to buy Chlorella online and how to tell which one has good quality?
It’s on this blog… approved products
Running an affiliate site w/ paid traffic in health niche, but I’m stuck in the annoying phase where my conversion rate is too low and am costs exceed income. Looks like a bunch of trial & error at this point. Other than targeting insecurity which I am attempting to do so, what else can you suggest to increase online sales?
Working on a side biz, my current day job as an engineer, working out several times a week to maintain low body fat, along with having healthy relationships whether dating/friends is exhausting and I find myself often fatigued mentally/physically. Looking into taking a vacation, and my diet consists of mostly rice, veggies, & lean meats. Any other tips to combat this fatigue?
Not helpful without conversions if it’s under 2-3% your ads are the problem.
That’s really it, sounds like you’re juggling too many things be honest and delete the stuff that doesn’t matter to you. If you’re in shape, healthy and happy all the time but still drained it’s obvious you’re doing way too much work
I recently attempted to make a career transition from B2B tech sales to software engineering by attending a top coding bootcamp. Unfortunately, I was failed out of the program and am now out six months of time and several thousand dollars with little to show for it.
Would it be better to:
1) find a new tech sales job and continuing studying coding part-time with the goal of making a career transition in a few years
2) abandon coding despite the sunk cost and double down on tech sales even though I don’t particularly enjoy it
Thank you for your advice.
If you can’t do it then go into sales. Easy call.
Why would you want to go into coding when you can make just as much coin in sales? Learn how to code on the side & build something with it as a side business.
He might not be good at sales and is a talented coder.
Agree same stuff though money wise
If you failed out of a bootcamp, you very likely don’t have talent in the software field. At least not top 20% talent.
26 years old. ~75K in index funds. No debt. Worthless degree from State school.
Making ~41k post tax 100% remote job in the blockchain space, the job is a dead end (effectively customer service). Been in the blockchain space 2 years (100% remote).
Have solid contacts with Developers in blockchain space (went to Consensus last week).
Noticed that many of the Devs have comp sci degrees.
Should I go back to school for computer science?
(Will cost me nothing in $ but 2 – 2.5 years of time – local state college)
Alternative: Dad has a couple of houses and condos. Been helping him for years in real estate since I was a teen. Can learn a trade and go down this route.
I believe my intelligence leans towards Synthesis.
Yes go into tech. Your dad’s biz is option 2
Thanks,
Should I give one of these coding bootcamps a shot or just get the degree?
Leaning toward degree since its most employable. None of the devs I have met went to one. All either taught themselves from young age or had a degree.
Whichever pays more money
Are you good at software or coding?
Have you tried going thru an introductory CS course at a top college?
Have you considered that a top bootcamp will ask for 20-30k of your 1st year salary?
Keep in mind for a lot of software engineers, we discovered our talents relatively early in life and have been honing our skills for many years.
People with both talent and drive can catch up, but odds are against you.
1.) Running a physical product ecom biz (nutra) but stuck in the phase where I’m testing audiences + creatives and failing to break even most of the time (not comfortable yet with “pouring money into the Facebook faucet”). When you were starting out how did you get past this stage. Ads have high CTR and low CPC so I assume either my lander is not good enough (1-2% CVR) or the audience doesn’t match the offer.
2.) Would you master FB first (consistent 2+ ROAS on cold traffic) before trying other networks like Pinterest/Snap (assuming these are still unsaturated)?
Thanks guys keep up the great work – happy you’re moving up in life but still helping us out!
1) you should know which audience is close to converting profitably. So stop trying new audiences focuses on the closest one and tweak the ad/landing page till green
2) yes, Facebook/google are still king
Thanks
1) What’s a good method to finding decent quality affiliate products that can be profitably promoted through FB paid traffic? checked out CB products and they all look like crap that won’t convert well.
2) are blackhat affiliate techniques required to produce a profit through FB ads or is it possible with whitehat simply through trial and error and getting good at finding new angles and creating ads over a period of time.
Thanks!
1) you should know based on your contacten you’ve made in the specific niche. There are typically only a few offerings that convert. So going blind is guaranteed failure. As usual choose a niche find the ones that aren’t working and get on that offering.
2) no they are not. The fast money overnight millionaires are black hatting though
You’ve mentioned you don’t take any supplements.
But do you use any fish oil and or multivitamin?
Just ran out looking for new ones if you have a suggestion.
Approved products… just use any liquid fish oil
The CEO at my small tech startup can be very impulsive. – He has worked hard for 4 years with no revenue and now we have a working product. He has worked very hard to get to this point, and deserves fun! Yet we have had many very late nights and it is slowing us down from scaling to real money and building longevity.
I am close with him and mindful of politics, so I always am working late with him and staying up partying (even if I don’t drink as much).
How can I help him keep on track without being ‘that guy’ or the mom / debbie downer of the group?
Can’t help here never been in this situation.
Stop worrying about it and use your free time to build your own biz.
With your website, which % ratio do you spend time writing content vs promoting the same content? 80% promoting?
Many thanks
Assume you mean the real business not this hobby blog?
In that case vast majority of time is ads + supply chain. The ads run themselves it’s about making them convert better with tweaks.
I noticed you were sharing posts from this site on wallstreetoasis’ forum, so I figured you were promoting this site somewhat seriously at some point.
This site seem to have plenty of traffic and good retention (talking traffic only, not monetization) but experience from your real biz in the same category (if any) would be great too
If you don’t feel you have the experience, no reply needed – I’ll run ads on top of writing either way just for the fun of it
Thanks for your time
What should I do with liquidity that I don’t need right now, but might be useful in the future? I have $17,000 (CAD) of play money that I don’t need right now (after accounting for 6 months personal spending + $500 per month DCA into index funds) parked in a 1.05% saving account. However, I’m holding onto them to turn on the DCA hose during the next market downturn or possibly a new business venture that might come up. For the moment, I’m just focusing on getting my first cashflow source up (sales career).
Should I:
– Keep them in the saving account to be as liquid as possible.
– Park them into a 100 days GIC (1.2%) earning similar interest
– Stagger them in a 14 months GIC at 2%
– Just DCA them into index fund
Total waste of time, even if you 10x that money in a decade it is only $170K
Start a biz, not even close. Unless a millionaire already there is no point in thinking about portfolio management.
25. Associate accounting degree, entry level job with one of the big 4(continuing in accounting does not have a high enough ROI). Numerics intelligence. Interested in AI/programming. ~150K saved currently in index funds. At a crossroads.
Should I…
1) Back to school for computer science/learn on my own
2) Find a sales job
3) Use the money to buy or build a company
4) Other?
Any advice from others who have found themselves in a similar situation would be welcome as well.
Awesome blog. Thanks!
This is not specific enough, decide what you’re best at and choose tech or sales.
What do you think about a Youtube channel for ad revenue/affiliate marketing, copying existing formats but speaking in a different language? I live in North America, but speak multiple languages and plan on making videos about my hobby speaking Korean.
Videos on this hobby already exist in English, and I could just make similar videos with the script/structure of the video already written out into my language. English videos of this hobby sit around 500K – 2M views, there are none in Korean. Do you think I could just do this identical format of the English videos, create my own videos and speak my own language and tap into another Youtube market?
Good return on time investment? I feel like I could get even more money from advertisers per click because I would have an even higher identifiable market niche: people from x age, living in y countries, who speak z language. Thoughts?
This doesn’t sound very profitable, basically seems like a time for money exchange as you need tons of content to generate views and ad revenue.
Have not tried the YouTube monetization route so can’t comment there, can only
comment on the biz model.
26 years old. Selling niche building products. Lump sum could be big and margin is nice. Problem is sales cycle could be really long and tender successful rate is questionably low.
My role is non-commissioned based. Any recommend?
Easy get out now. No commission no performance? Not a real career.
Knowing that I will get promoted in mid 2019 (one month left) is the major reason I am still staying in the current company.
After promotion shall I get straight into another B2B company for a commission-based sales position?
In “Extreme Prioritization When Traveling Like a Mad Man”, you mentioned 2019, 2013, 2006 and 2007 are high economic activity years. I come from tech background, not much knowledge in finance. How can I spot this kind of year in the future?
Peak services revenue are signs of a overspending environment. Fitness instructors, massages, dry cleaning, laundry services etc.
I’m a college student looking to start selling weight loss pills. c$30k is needed to start the business. As I don’t have the money myself, I’ve decided to work with a partner (I know you’re against this) who’s going to bring in the capital.
How do we split the company’s stake to make it fair for the both of us?
What I bring: business idea (I understand this has little value), free/discounted ads on influencers’ Instagram accounts (500k, 1m follower accounts) through family connections, and I have done most of the work as of now (business plan, competitor analysis, idea design to separate us from competitors, searched and found manufacturer).
What he brings: seed capital and B&M spots to sell our product (gyms his family owns and connections).
Responsibilities have not been set yet, but I expect work will be split 50/50.
Worst idea we have seen on the blog, it will fail.
You’re better off working 3 jobs getting the money and doing it yourself. This is a classic mistake that sounds good but fails 99% of the time. That’s the real answer
I apologize for missi g the q&a, was working. But I dont hv a twitter to share this thought.
I saw GoThrones had highest ratings ever on HBO, w/ 6x episodes instead of the usual 10. And the lead actors each clear 1mm usd per episode.
Thats a 40% cut in personnel costs- an easy 20mm in efficient savings with less work.
So the showrunners made a bundle while increasing episode length, getting ratings, setting spinoffs shows with cheaper actors, and leaving people upset so they talk about it more
Creating an emotional gap filled by a 2nd tv show, book, movie…
1) Efficiency did not mention much about learning SEO. Currently investing a hell lot of time to learn it and feels like going down a rabbit hole. Is it worth the effort to master SEO? Or to continue learning copywriting?
2) Since mainstream folks are piling into crypto, is it still a good time to invest?
Thank you as always.
1) no not worth it ads kill all SEO that’s why we didn’t even bother.
2) yes 1-5% net worth all times.
i understand your reasoning – but with SEO you can do a lot of things which you can not with ads.
I made millions with it and i still get a passive income of $100k+ each month with minimal investment of time.
Was a lot of work to build the network though.
Nice feel free to drop your quick ideas on SEO maximization.
Sure.
All you need for successful SEO is good incoming links, good onpage SEO and internal linking. There are tons of guides online for this. Don´t go too much into the details, do the 20% which give you the most leverage and forget the rest. Build more sites instead.
You get good links either by buying them, sharing them with other webmasters or building your own network, preferably with expired domains which were dropped and already have a ton of backlinks. Combine all three.
Of course you need good copywriting to create a page which converts. Understand the information- and buying process of the people.
The most interesting niches for SEO is everything which Google does not allow you to place ads on. Easy to figure that out. If you do affiliate, most keywords which are forbidden to place ads on are great for SEO. Do nothing illegal though, only what Google doesn´t like. Its not your fault your site ranks for something which converts like hell and the merchant / brand wants it exclusively for himself.
People say SEO is dead since i started with SEO. It is a ton of work to build your network but at a certain point it runs on autopilot, you can travel the world and get a ton of passive income.
Good luck!
Personally, don’t agree with the commentary. I own affiliate sites in the gambling niche and make high 6-figures per year, all from organic traffic. It’s possible to make a lot of money doing SEO, you just have to pick the right niche (high commissions) and be in the top 1%.
I’m trying to take over a nano-cap public company. Only relevant experience is founding and running a much smaller company in the same industry and a strong belief I could run the other company better. How do I find and convince investors to back me on a buyout attempt?
Wow you’re way high up the chain. You’d want to look into a poison pill to protect over hostile takeovers. But if you’re private and own over 51% not sure how that matters? A bit confusing
You guys mentioned how your posts are increasingly alienating the “150k online” group. What do you think the main differential is that enables some people to break through and become truly rich while others remain in the former group?
Eventually have to sell a real product, lifestyle income only works in bull markets since it’s essentially services.
Something recurring and valuable is always going to win versus grind it out e-content that goes to zero in a recession
How do you see the next correction/recession affecting online business opportunities?
At T15 undergrad and planning on building a consulting biz to start, then switching to a more scalable model once I have proof of concept.
Love your stuff. Thanks!
Probably the same, these lifestyle income people will see revenue go down by 50% and hard times. People with money scoop up cheap real estate and stocks.
Services get killed essentially, the winners will be people with diversified types of income and people building heavy cash now. Same as 2008-2009
First of all I love your blog and your books, they’ve helped avoid many mistakes in my life.
From your writings I gather youre somewhat similar to me, individualistic, low in agreeableness and not much of a team player.
Question: what was your strategy for getting your colleagues on your side when starting out at the bottom of the totem pole. Particularly, superiors are happy with my performance, but feedback from my colleagues is bad and it’s harming my reviews.
Much appreciated
Well the easiest way is to choose the guy who is least likely to back stab you (the nerdier one). Get him to look good/promote him internally. Then you’ll have more than enough support. That said we didn’t spend a ton of time in finance so not sure how long that strategy lasts
Graduated From UVA yesterday. Starting tech sales in NYC in July. Any recommendations on how to be productive and prepare myself for starting my career over the next couple months? What would you do in the meantime.
1) read sales books
2) start making money selling online
#2 should be 90% of your time, when you’re exhausted go do number 1
read question based selling
take improv classes (asap)
read the book impro
read – fiction, history
write (twitter or memes for low commitment is easy enough if a blog or journal too much) – 90% of the emails sent are god awful btw so pretty easy to break through the noise if you can write and edit
go to every party you can and socialize
Banking associate with very little deal flow in my group. Hours are 9 to 6 or 7, but I have very little experience to get a VP promote here or at any other bank.
On the other hand, because of all the free time, I’ve made $50,000 in profit in the past year online.
Working on setting up an ecom brand with influencers. Will take about 6 to 9 months to launch.
Question:
Should I stay where I am and continue to build my business while taking on the risk of my career going nowhere?
Or should i switch to another group and work significantly more hours, which will leave a lot less time for my business?
That’s a tough call, if you think you can scale the biz then would stay. Scaling meaning $250K+ very shortly.
If you think the biz is capped, then go ahead and look (jump to another shop). This is not an easy one, our guess is jumping won’t make sense if you’re selling your own product (not affiliate).
I just made the same move as a senior associate at very poor MM firm with no deal flow, only co-managed ECM. Got promoted to VP, but the house was falling apart with rainmaker departures. Made jump to Tier-1 BB miraculously but don’t think they won’t expect you to take a year or two back. I like the business and wanted the large complex deals for experience because want to hit the gas pedal for 5-10 more years as hard as I could to see if I could make it to the 1M a year point in the career as a director. This was only possible for me if sneaking my way up at the BB or generating business at a solid MM, Boutique (hard if nobody knows firm). Was a no brainer for me because only side income was dividend checks from large net worth accumulated. Your situation depends on which path you want, but no deals = death in downturn. Don’t think necessarily safer at powerhouse BB or sub-par shop you’ve built some sweat equity at. Brand name and deal flow in this business matters big time and when market is hot, many trying to successfully make the move upstream.
1. In your post Money Making Machine, it says it will cost around 50K to start something meaningful. Providing you have a good biz idea, would you recommend starting something immediately as soon as you accumulate 50K in savings or start something quicker by initially investing around 10-20K and then keep investing a couple thousand each month moving forward (difference of 1-2 years).
2. Will be entering my final year of university this coming fall. Due to a lingering health issue, I will not be able to work or party. Can’t fund side biz nor can I have fun/improve social skills (which are already great tbh). I plan on doing reasonably well in school but obviously see no point in going overkill on marks as 4th year business marks don’t mean much (time to overkill was years 1-3). What would you do with all of my free time?
1) if you were already success as an affiliate then yes jump into the big boy leagues and start something. If you have no skills then you shouldn’t waste $50K on something where you have no value to provide
2) would earn income online. Any form possible. If you already land a career position, skip straight to learning online sales.
1. Noted, I’m definitely going to go affiliate first. If i can’t sell someone else’s product I’ll sure as hell have a hard time selling mine.
2. Will probably transcribe audio/do Fiverr tasks to get some income to fund something else. Will read everything about online sales including the sales/copywriting books from Efficiency. Thanks
Is there anything you wish you would have known about working with private label manufacturers that you did not before your first experience?
That you want to eventually do your own manufacturing, so fake copious notes on how to eventually make your own.
The margins are quite high if you can pull it off, ignoring what they are doing just costs you time.
I’m a startup founder, male in mid 30’s, who really does work +80 hours a week (no lying up). Am really quite exhausted and worn out.
Any advice / hacks for
1) maintaining health and well-being other than the advice in the book / website so far? (exercising regime, diet, green juice, fish oil)
2) leadership (managing and inspiring teams of people)
3) public speaking (get nervous speaking in large groups of people)
4) relaxing and taking time off
Thanks
not sure how to help that’s also four different questions. You should outsource your work 80 hours is just not sustainable for someone in his mid 30s
Do you see Austin competing with the Bay Area for tech talent in the near future? Heavily weighing building a startup in either city. I hate San Francisco but I can’t discount the level of talent that resides there.
Near-term, no. Maybe in a couple of decades.
1.For lightweight sites (think affiliate) is WordPress necessary? (thinking of using alternatives like Squarespace, Wix, etc.)
2.Favorite lounge/restaurant in Williamsburg?
1) WordPress is the easiest but all of those are similar/fine
2) Do not venture out there, more for people in early 20s, info would be stale.
Main Question: Should one be in (say quant) finance with the upcoming recession and how will it affect people working in that sector?
Optional : Also any advice for driven high IQ people to whom many careers look boring as hell and feel like wasting braincells? Eg even a lot of tech looks dull and boring for me and many such ppl I know
Yes quants will be fine, still profitable in downturns if you’re good.
Would say you should diversify into online sales (we know beating dead horses) but without sales skills you’ll be stuck as a quant forever. Need to have both skills.
Thank you for your response. Thats good to hear!
I am actually one of those rare numeric guys that have people skills. However, not particularly talented in this area, I needed practice. So sales could be ok to learn for me. Just not my strongest suit.
Was mostly talking about being bored on an intellectual level, ie job not being intellectually challenging Say in tech, level of numeric talent needed is not top 1%. Actually its better to be pretty smart and not absolutely razor-sharp cause youll get bored. Alot of the ideas look simple from a mathematicians point of view. Difficulty of questions and degree of technical competence for Google interviews is vastly overstated for example.
1) How do you go from ON MODE to OFF MODE and from OFF MODE to ON MODE? I am having trouble doing either when I am in one or the other. I might as well just stay in the ON MODE all the time.
2) If your work is not as technical (running a food wholesale business), do you have any suggestions on how to keep your brain and mind sharp?/Keep yourself intelligently fit sort of speak? (currently adopted a routine reading physics; lectures of Richard Feynman).
Thank you guys!
Eventually it mergers and you’re really just focused all the time. When you’re not focused you’re about to go to sleep. This is due to becoming rich and happy all the time, so the dopamine keeps you high energy all the time.
Easy answer start a secondary source of income that requires more thinking.
Make sense. Nice insight for the first one.
Brilliant on the second.
Thank you.
Age 26. Selling Cars. Recommended career path?
Move to selling homes then flipping them. Easy transition, ideally you’re selling high end cars.
Feel the need to interject as its in my wheelhouse and want to offer another option. High end cars vs mid range (used in either case as commissions are higher) won’t matter. Low turnaround on high end (market dependant). Commissions usually capped or paid flat rate to salesman plus salary on high end. If your dealer is paying you salary plus, your earning less then you should be for reasons obvious to this blog’s readership and should move on or ask to go straight commission. You can make as much or more in a busy market, selling to your average joe/jane. This clientele you will find as a whole are not as savvy, more prone to impulse and get emotional (easier to close). Bonus points if credit is sketchy and they come in with a weak hand which you don’t see to often at the boutique stores.
This way there are no caps, longer hours (more opportunities) and more gross potential because a good sales manager can steal trades easier. Not as fun at dinner parties to say your selling Ford vs Ferrari but ego won’t pay for the fun stuff.
Big margin items normally get “penciled” by the dealer, industry term for showing higher cost on the books to pay salesman less as most are paid on gross profit. Some exclusive exotic dealers even pay salary plus “production bonus”.
Terrible if your a high performer. Great for the dealer on an avg net/deal basis.
All this assumes your a top performer. If not, work to become one or your in the wrong game at any store. Its a grinding, terrible way to make a living if your in the sub 100k club which will be most of your colleagues despite what they brag about at the cooler. Put in the extra effort/hours and get in on the spits your lazy colleagues will offer because they want to go home early when the customer is late at 8 pm Saturday and buddy is hosting a bbq and beer pong tourney they NEED to get to. Bank your money, find some deals and put it towards getting your own “hustle” (is that what the kids call it now?) going. Pro tip, you can find these guys to run over and split deals with in the middle of the board as they are good enough to not be in the bottom then get complacent once their monthly nut (usually 3-5k) is covered. They will also brag about that “one killer month” they had last year when things were “busier”. Just agree, claim your going to go get lunch and go find a customer somewhere.
Well aware there are exceptions of course. Reality is a top luxury guy still makes money and would do so in a domestic dealer as well. Im just saying you don’t have to sell luxury to make money by any means. An argument could be made for networking opportunities on the luxury side but you can do that after hours regardless.
Finally I do agree wholeheartedly making moves on real estate on the side however. A sizeable portion of my net worth was made there. Outwork your peers, learn the sales trade as it’s transferable to everything else you will ever do, including real estate and use those skills to crush your side buis. Bigger picture.
Source: Over 20 years in the game. Top performer then dealership owner. Dealerships pay for the real estate under them and help with acquiring more. Yes I still help the guys desk deals when I’m around, because even after 40 I love the rush and keeps me sharp. Hope this helps.
Hey WSPs, are you buying any stocks/indexes any more or holding?
Thanks, have a great week!
Haven’t been buying since end of last year (just holding), cash, crypto, real estate
Mostly cash
What’s your favourite wine/champagne?
Ace spades
Would consider debunking get-rich-quick schemes? Not MLM or pyramid schemes but like penny stocks pump and dumps. Go through the operational side and the back-end side. How to spot a scam and take advantage if possible.
Way too long of an answer, honestly if someone isn’t smart enough to spot blatant scams they aren’t worth educating in general
Thanks again!
Going to be starting my full time career soon. I’ve noticed that I have lost touch with a lot of people since high school/college because there’s not a lot to relate.
You mentioned about how your contact list should be changing as you level up in your previous posts. Besides meeting people at work, gym, and going to industry conference, where else do you meet people?
It also seems an online business (1 man team) can seem lonely at time if that’s all you focus on.
That’s really all it is, as you move up socioeconomically the people you interact with changes by default. No need to look for anything
Best course/authority figure to learn from on flipping websites?
None. You either have the skills and identify assets or you don’t have skills go in blind and lose money
Do you recommend physical therapy and have any info on how to determine if one is good?
Don’t have this issue can’t help, see a professional who trains top tier athletes
I’m 25 years old, just graduated with my PharmD. Doing a MBA (from a small school so not prestigious at all).
Any good performance-based pharmacy/healthcare careers you guys know of? My talent is synthesis (very good at connecting the dots/breaking down any problem into its simplest parts). I’ve been researching like a madman, but am curious if you guys know of anything especially promising.
Keep up the good work!
Pharma sals but usually for attractive women. Look for anything *expensive* medical product sales.
Chlorella: do you prefer powder or tablets? And why?
Powder goes faster to blood stream, pills are too slow
Any tip on where to buy Chlorella online and how to tell which one has good quality?
It’s on this blog… approved products
Running an affiliate site w/ paid traffic in health niche, but I’m stuck in the annoying phase where my conversion rate is too low and am costs exceed income. Looks like a bunch of trial & error at this point. Other than targeting insecurity which I am attempting to do so, what else can you suggest to increase online sales?
Working on a side biz, my current day job as an engineer, working out several times a week to maintain low body fat, along with having healthy relationships whether dating/friends is exhausting and I find myself often fatigued mentally/physically. Looking into taking a vacation, and my diet consists of mostly rice, veggies, & lean meats. Any other tips to combat this fatigue?
Not helpful without conversions if it’s under 2-3% your ads are the problem.
That’s really it, sounds like you’re juggling too many things be honest and delete the stuff that doesn’t matter to you. If you’re in shape, healthy and happy all the time but still drained it’s obvious you’re doing way too much work
I recently attempted to make a career transition from B2B tech sales to software engineering by attending a top coding bootcamp. Unfortunately, I was failed out of the program and am now out six months of time and several thousand dollars with little to show for it.
Would it be better to:
1) find a new tech sales job and continuing studying coding part-time with the goal of making a career transition in a few years
2) abandon coding despite the sunk cost and double down on tech sales even though I don’t particularly enjoy it
Thank you for your advice.
If you can’t do it then go into sales. Easy call.
Why would you want to go into coding when you can make just as much coin in sales? Learn how to code on the side & build something with it as a side business.
He might not be good at sales and is a talented coder.
Agree same stuff though money wise
If you failed out of a bootcamp, you very likely don’t have talent in the software field. At least not top 20% talent.
26 years old. ~75K in index funds. No debt. Worthless degree from State school.
Making ~41k post tax 100% remote job in the blockchain space, the job is a dead end (effectively customer service). Been in the blockchain space 2 years (100% remote).
Have solid contacts with Developers in blockchain space (went to Consensus last week).
Noticed that many of the Devs have comp sci degrees.
Should I go back to school for computer science?
(Will cost me nothing in $ but 2 – 2.5 years of time – local state college)
Alternative: Dad has a couple of houses and condos. Been helping him for years in real estate since I was a teen. Can learn a trade and go down this route.
I believe my intelligence leans towards Synthesis.
Yes go into tech. Your dad’s biz is option 2
Thanks,
Should I give one of these coding bootcamps a shot or just get the degree?
Leaning toward degree since its most employable. None of the devs I have met went to one. All either taught themselves from young age or had a degree.
Whichever pays more money
Are you good at software or coding?
Have you tried going thru an introductory CS course at a top college?
Have you considered that a top bootcamp will ask for 20-30k of your 1st year salary?
Keep in mind for a lot of software engineers, we discovered our talents relatively early in life and have been honing our skills for many years.
People with both talent and drive can catch up, but odds are against you.
1.) Running a physical product ecom biz (nutra) but stuck in the phase where I’m testing audiences + creatives and failing to break even most of the time (not comfortable yet with “pouring money into the Facebook faucet”). When you were starting out how did you get past this stage. Ads have high CTR and low CPC so I assume either my lander is not good enough (1-2% CVR) or the audience doesn’t match the offer.
2.) Would you master FB first (consistent 2+ ROAS on cold traffic) before trying other networks like Pinterest/Snap (assuming these are still unsaturated)?
Thanks guys keep up the great work – happy you’re moving up in life but still helping us out!
1) you should know which audience is close to converting profitably. So stop trying new audiences focuses on the closest one and tweak the ad/landing page till green
2) yes, Facebook/google are still king
Thanks
1) What’s a good method to finding decent quality affiliate products that can be profitably promoted through FB paid traffic? checked out CB products and they all look like crap that won’t convert well.
2) are blackhat affiliate techniques required to produce a profit through FB ads or is it possible with whitehat simply through trial and error and getting good at finding new angles and creating ads over a period of time.
Thanks!
1) you should know based on your contacten you’ve made in the specific niche. There are typically only a few offerings that convert. So going blind is guaranteed failure. As usual choose a niche find the ones that aren’t working and get on that offering.
2) no they are not. The fast money overnight millionaires are black hatting though
You’ve mentioned you don’t take any supplements.
But do you use any fish oil and or multivitamin?
Just ran out looking for new ones if you have a suggestion.
Approved products… just use any liquid fish oil
The CEO at my small tech startup can be very impulsive. – He has worked hard for 4 years with no revenue and now we have a working product. He has worked very hard to get to this point, and deserves fun! Yet we have had many very late nights and it is slowing us down from scaling to real money and building longevity.
I am close with him and mindful of politics, so I always am working late with him and staying up partying (even if I don’t drink as much).
How can I help him keep on track without being ‘that guy’ or the mom / debbie downer of the group?
Can’t help here never been in this situation.
Stop worrying about it and use your free time to build your own biz.
With your website, which % ratio do you spend time writing content vs promoting the same content? 80% promoting?
Many thanks
Assume you mean the real business not this hobby blog?
In that case vast majority of time is ads + supply chain. The ads run themselves it’s about making them convert better with tweaks.
I noticed you were sharing posts from this site on wallstreetoasis’ forum, so I figured you were promoting this site somewhat seriously at some point.
This site seem to have plenty of traffic and good retention (talking traffic only, not monetization) but experience from your real biz in the same category (if any) would be great too
If you don’t feel you have the experience, no reply needed – I’ll run ads on top of writing either way just for the fun of it
Thanks for your time
What should I do with liquidity that I don’t need right now, but might be useful in the future? I have $17,000 (CAD) of play money that I don’t need right now (after accounting for 6 months personal spending + $500 per month DCA into index funds) parked in a 1.05% saving account. However, I’m holding onto them to turn on the DCA hose during the next market downturn or possibly a new business venture that might come up. For the moment, I’m just focusing on getting my first cashflow source up (sales career).
Should I:
– Keep them in the saving account to be as liquid as possible.
– Park them into a 100 days GIC (1.2%) earning similar interest
– Stagger them in a 14 months GIC at 2%
– Just DCA them into index fund
Total waste of time, even if you 10x that money in a decade it is only $170K
Start a biz, not even close. Unless a millionaire already there is no point in thinking about portfolio management.
25. Associate accounting degree, entry level job with one of the big 4(continuing in accounting does not have a high enough ROI). Numerics intelligence. Interested in AI/programming. ~150K saved currently in index funds. At a crossroads.
Should I…
1) Back to school for computer science/learn on my own
2) Find a sales job
3) Use the money to buy or build a company
4) Other?
Any advice from others who have found themselves in a similar situation would be welcome as well.
Awesome blog. Thanks!
This is not specific enough, decide what you’re best at and choose tech or sales.
What do you think about a Youtube channel for ad revenue/affiliate marketing, copying existing formats but speaking in a different language? I live in North America, but speak multiple languages and plan on making videos about my hobby speaking Korean.
Videos on this hobby already exist in English, and I could just make similar videos with the script/structure of the video already written out into my language. English videos of this hobby sit around 500K – 2M views, there are none in Korean. Do you think I could just do this identical format of the English videos, create my own videos and speak my own language and tap into another Youtube market?
Good return on time investment? I feel like I could get even more money from advertisers per click because I would have an even higher identifiable market niche: people from x age, living in y countries, who speak z language. Thoughts?
This doesn’t sound very profitable, basically seems like a time for money exchange as you need tons of content to generate views and ad revenue.
Have not tried the YouTube monetization route so can’t comment there, can only
comment on the biz model.
26 years old. Selling niche building products. Lump sum could be big and margin is nice. Problem is sales cycle could be really long and tender successful rate is questionably low.
My role is non-commissioned based. Any recommend?
Easy get out now. No commission no performance? Not a real career.
Knowing that I will get promoted in mid 2019 (one month left) is the major reason I am still staying in the current company.
After promotion shall I get straight into another B2B company for a commission-based sales position?
In “Extreme Prioritization When Traveling Like a Mad Man”, you mentioned 2019, 2013, 2006 and 2007 are high economic activity years. I come from tech background, not much knowledge in finance. How can I spot this kind of year in the future?
Peak services revenue are signs of a overspending environment. Fitness instructors, massages, dry cleaning, laundry services etc.
I’m a college student looking to start selling weight loss pills. c$30k is needed to start the business. As I don’t have the money myself, I’ve decided to work with a partner (I know you’re against this) who’s going to bring in the capital.
How do we split the company’s stake to make it fair for the both of us?
What I bring: business idea (I understand this has little value), free/discounted ads on influencers’ Instagram accounts (500k, 1m follower accounts) through family connections, and I have done most of the work as of now (business plan, competitor analysis, idea design to separate us from competitors, searched and found manufacturer).
What he brings: seed capital and B&M spots to sell our product (gyms his family owns and connections).
Responsibilities have not been set yet, but I expect work will be split 50/50.
Worst idea we have seen on the blog, it will fail.
You’re better off working 3 jobs getting the money and doing it yourself. This is a classic mistake that sounds good but fails 99% of the time. That’s the real answer
I apologize for missi g the q&a, was working. But I dont hv a twitter to share this thought.
I saw GoThrones had highest ratings ever on HBO, w/ 6x episodes instead of the usual 10. And the lead actors each clear 1mm usd per episode.
Thats a 40% cut in personnel costs- an easy 20mm in efficient savings with less work.
So the showrunners made a bundle while increasing episode length, getting ratings, setting spinoffs shows with cheaper actors, and leaving people upset so they talk about it more
Creating an emotional gap filled by a 2nd tv show, book, movie…
Pretty geniuz