How I Made $200,000 With My First "Proper" Internet Business

Just a few years ago, I was working as a locksmith in the UK and I didn’t know a thing about digital marketing, but I loved the idea of making money online. Who doesn’t?

I didn’t want to make millions, at first, I just wanted a side income, or at least enough to quit my job.

So like everyone, I headed to Google and typed in “how to make money online”

And BOOM - You’re in the never-ending rabbit hole!

So after hours, days, weeks and months of watching youtube videos, listening to podcasts, attending webinars and even going to live events.

I was none the wiser…

I just had brain fog. I was learning all these strategies but didn’t know how to put them to use.

In fact, I didn’t even know what business model to go with, it felt like every market was already saturated by the time I discovered it!

So I tried everything, affiliate marketing, print on demand, ebooks, dropshipping, you name it, I tried it then gave up and became discouraged when it didn’t work.

Then I’d move on to the next thing. I was seriously lacking focus.

In fact, I even purchased expensive online courses and got bored watching them so I’d never complete courses or take action.

I’d get overwhelmed with the techy stuff and end up just watching youtube or looking for the next opportunity.

This was taking up all my spare time as I was still in my full-time job.

Everyone kept saying that the best way to make money online was to monetize the knowledge you already have.

So I thought hmm what skills do I have? I am a locksmith so I’ll put a course together.

At first, I couldn’t be bothered even putting a course together as I wasn’t convinced I’d be able to sell it, but I did it anyway.

Now, putting the course together was actually the easy part. I just got my girlfriend to film me on a few jobs and I put together a simple 20-video course.

The hard part was selling the bloody thing.

I tried to “model, funnel hack, or copy” what others were doing and it didn’t work.

Why were some people able to sell so easily online and I couldn’t even if I copied their sales pages?

Zero sales.

It started to get embarrassing and I thought it was personal, maybe people didn’t like my accent, the way I looked, the colours on the sales page etc.

This started to get really frustrating as I see all these people making millions online and I couldn’t even make $100 online. I thought I must just be stupid and not cut out for all this.

It felt like every day that went past where I hadn’t “made it” was eating me alive.

Time was running out on my dreams and I was desperate for a breakthrough.

Thinking back, I’m not sure if I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, or I was trying to impress others.

So I sought out a coach.

I’d put too many hours into this now and I'd come too far to give up and have all my hours of studying be in vain.

My coach told me I needed to first build “know, like and trust” before anyone is going to give me money.

It made total sense to me.

People don’t know who to trust online anymore as too many people have been burnt.

Without "know like and trust", It’s kinda like walking up to someone on the street and just saying do you want to buy my stuff?

Or asking a random in the coffee shop to marry you.

People didn’t know me, I was new to the market.

So it didn’t matter if I copied their sales page - They already had the secret sauce of KLT or know, like and trust so of course, their customers know liked and trusted them which is why they were raking in thousands of dollars every day.

So I needed to nurture my audience in a way that didn’t require me to spend all day posting on social media.

I am not very active on social media as I’m quite a private person and I wasn’t willing to do daily live streams, cringe-vulnerable posts, or any other value post.

Plus it takes time and effort to get traction on any of these platforms.

So I geeked out on ways to nurture leads to become buyers, through email sequences, indoctrination videos, webinars, Facebook group events, and even phone calls.

I finally blended a few of these concepts together that created a system where a lead would come into my business and be nurtured on autopilot.

It’s like a machine where you put a cold customer in one end and they usually come out of the other end as a very keen buyer who’s asking how to buy my stuff.

I even gave it its own name, the KLT Machine!

Now I just needed to fill my KLT machine with leads and let it get to work!

I knew that if I just get a consistent flow of leads coming into my KLT machine, then the business would take care of itself.

I’d lost money on ads before so I was reluctant to spend too much on ads but I tested a small budget anyway and it proved to be highly profitable with paid ads.

And I didn’t even need to spend much on ads as I was using SEO tactics on Youtube so that if someone searched for a topic in my niche, they would end up finding me organically and entering into my nurture sequence.

It felt awesome.

After a couple of weeks of doing this, sales were coming in and I remember one day I was sitting in a restaurant with my girlfriend and another couple of friends and my phone would not stop pinging with sales notifications from Stripe payments.

Ping $197
Ping $197
Ping $197

It went on like this consistently.

But then suddenly..

I got backlash from the locksmith industry.

Someone found out I was selling a locksmith course and started posting it in the locksmith association groups.

Locksmiths were not happy with the fact that I was sharing this stuff online and my inbox was full of angry locksmiths from associations telling me I was “banned” from their associations.

I almost gave up, but something inside me told me to just keep going regardless.

Plus I was making twice as much as I was as a locksmith and felt like I didn’t owe these people anything.

Because the start-up locksmiths who I was helping were huge fans as I had built up so much know like and trust.

I focused on serving them.

And I’m glad I did as I am now approaching a quarter of a million dollars from that 1 course alone and that was my first internet business.

I knew that I now had the secret sauce to sell absolutely anything online in any industry.

So I now use this secret weapon to sell ANYTHING online in ANY industry! affiliate marketing and other business ventures.

And it just works every time.

Since then I’ve been featured in this best-selling book documenting my story of being a six-figure entrepreneur.

Got a few awards from Kajabi.

I’ve even moved from the UK to sunny Spain where I now spend my time just living life like an adventure!