Almost 9 years ago... back when I was 21 years old I started my first 'proper' business - one of which was huge, scary break-even targets and hundreds of thousands of liabilities in year one.
I believed so much in what I was doing that I assumed everyone else would too = sales, sales, sales...
NOPE. Tumbleweed. Nada.
We were liable for hundreds of thousands of pounds and yet... I was £2000 in to my student overdraft - maxed out. No sales didn't mean abort. It meant I was in HUGE trouble financially if I didn't fix it FAST!
If you've ever had a campaign flop, a product not sell like you expected or you feel like you've got no certainty over where/when the next sale is coming from... I know how you feel.
Talk about the opposite of what you expected when launching your passion business... 😔
So, after months of cold calling and cold emailing and not a single sale I decided to seek out new information.
I attended conferences, watched YouTube videos, read blogs and signed up for my first marketing programme.
Within DAYS we had turned a corner.
We implemented one strategy that landed us not only our first sale, but such big, high quality sale that it was social proof for the business that created a snow-ball effect making every marketing strategy even higher converting than the last.
But we didn't stop there. We continued to learn from others, implement and grow.
Five years later we had built an amazing business (in my eyes!) that was then acquired by one of the country's biggest event organisers.
From here, companies wanted me to run Facebook Ads for them, hearing of the success that came almost 100% from social media, email marketing and - more than anything else - Facebook Ads...
My first client came from a word-of-mouth recommendation. They had a new gym opening and wanted me to run their launch campaign...
I didn't want to do it at first - but I wanted to take my girlfriend (now wife) to see her family in New York who she hadn't seen in 8 months so I priced the job at the price of the trip for both of us!
I spent £4000 on their ads and delivered £297,866 in pre-sales - before they'd even opened their doors...
This lead to a 100% word-of-mouth business, years of never needing to run my own marketing because I was maxed out with clients.
(also a VERY happy girlfriend who got to see her family!)
But then it happened. Another tough spot.
No more room for clients, working around the clock.
"Yeah Neil, sounds awful. No more room for clients. Thoughts and prayers go out to your family..."
But this was a tough spot. Tougher than going through this myself a few years back...
Business owners were coming to me with the same brutal struggles I had when I kicked off and I knew exactly what they were going through. It's torture. Literally. And I know you know that feeling all too well too...
So turning them away because I was "too busy" was awful for me, because I wondered if they were going to go down the same terrible routes I did:
> Years of trial and error
> Years of wasting money
> Years of throwing money against the wall to see what sticks
> Years of Google searching trying to find the answers
> Years of hardship, struggles and unhappiness
Anyone who knows me knows I would drop everything and give my final coin to help someone who was struggling yet I was being forced to turn these people away, knowing what they faced without the answers.
So I decided to teach the bullet-proof marketing methods I developed over years of hardship in growing my business and many other's, in the simplest format possible to entrepreneurs so they can take immediate action and grow their business quicker and more safely than I - or anyone else around them - ever did.
And was born: The 16 Week Digital Marketing Programme which has changed the lives and businesses of hundreds since it's inception with new members joining, implementing and growing daily...
Book your 1-2-1 strategy session directly with me now to discuss your businesses biggest opportunities right now and see if the programme is a good fit for you too...