Milestones
With many folks sharing the start of their journey, others (like myself) become busier and fail to update as their online business grows. To counter this trend, I thought today would be a good time to share the key milestones along my journey to this point in my online career.
Perhaps you have seen similar milestones, or have yet to see them. Or perhaps your own journey has very different milestones? Please leave me a comment and let us all know!
30 Milestones in 5 Years
Here we go - as best as I can remember (accuracy might be hazy!)
- April 2015: Switched day job to remote contractor (performance based, no salary)
- September 2015: Joined Wealthy Affiliate (went premium a few weeks later)
- December 31st, 2015: Completed Online Certification Training
- January 2016: First request from external agency to post content on my site
- March 2016: First commissions from affiliate marketing
- March 23rd, 2016: Achieved profit from WA membership
- June 2016: Established a long term, freelance contract in digital marketing sales
- June 2016: Fired my boss - income now 100% online
- July 2016: Wrote my first training module on WA
- 2017 to mid 2018: Start brewing business in China, online business is reduced
- Mid 2018: Form a digital media company (the paperwork)
- November 2018: Take over digital assets of company I'd been freelancing for
- January 2019: Partner with a fellow digital marketer
- February 2019: Clients begin to pay into my new company
- March - April 2019: Difficulties in hiring and at odds with partner
- April 2019: Fire / pay out partner
- April 2019: Hire salesperson
- May 2019: Write mission statement, Re-design audience driven business model
- May 2019: Hire first content writer (content team formed)
- June 2019: First workcation (becoming a digital nomad)
- July 2019: The world gets disruptive (narrowly avoid the HK airport lock-in)
- October 2019? - First $10,000 month
- November 2019: Have been running a digital marketing company for 1 year
- December 2019: The world catches fire, business is tense
- January 2020: The world goes to hell, business is very tense
- April 2020: Business is growing as events being replaced with digital advertising
- April 2020: Give away $5,000 in monthly ads to assist the businesses in my niche
- June 2020: First $20,000 month (in revenue written, not 100% realised in June)
- July 2020: My company finally starts losing business due to the Pandemic
- July 2020: Almost all tasks outsourced
Where I am Now
So there we go! 30 milestones in 5 years. I now run a small but moderately successful media company, recognized by the majority of companies operating in my niche. I have 3 people working for me, and as of Monday, my primary role is management and my secondary role is sales.
Where Next?
With this latest hire, my time is freed up for new digital projects. I have been planning this next step for the past 3 years, and I finally have the time and money to make it happen.
It's been a crazy journey, but so far it's led me to a good place and I'm super excited to share the next stage of the journey with my Digital Marketing team and my WA family!
Your Milestones
Have you passed any of these milestones? Are you looking at any coming up in the near future? Please tell me where you're at, and I'd be happy to share my experiences in depth with you.
Cheers!
-R. Kingsley
Recent Comments
13
Thanks for the post bro! I liked to look at successfully timelines; somebody told me that it leaves clues.
Not yet in this forum. Sometimes effective people will give glimpses of their journey on Youtube. Other than that seems like you just have to read about people from the past.
You should be incredibly proud of yourself.
if I reach half your list I'll be happy, (especially Oct/19)
Well done again, reading your milestones gives other people hope, (me included).
All the best Kingsley.
Hopefully you'll be able to look at this list as points to watch for in your own journey, so you know what's coming up next!
Hi Jesse.
Your story is an inspiration to many.
These days I'm a retired person and anything I achieve in my retirement years is simply a bonus.
If I had to write down my milestones it would take up far to much room in the WA platform. One day I'll write a book.
I love the frank and honest way you have written down your milestones. They make for a great read.
I wish you all the best for the future, along with many more successful years.
All the best. Jim
Thanks Jim!
Are there any here that look the same to you? I'm super interested to see if this is a typical journey, and if not, what do the similarities look like?
This might give myself and others here a cheat-sheet to success, by identifying the key steps beyond the basic training... maybe.
Yours has obviously been a long term journey my friend. I think that on its own is rare so I probably wouldn't call it 'typical'.
There are others that have success stories here that are probably similiar in some aspects, but very different in others.
I did write a blog Mentioning a few of those that I know have turned affiliate marketing into a full time business.
Those that come to mind are Nathaniel, Zed from Smartketeer, Grace from littlemamma, Jerry Huang, Israel, Jay from MagiStudios and many more that I can't think of off hand.
As far as any extra traininv is concerned I don't mind paying for this from platforms such as Udemy.
I'm currently completing a course there on building an e-commerce site.
I also completed a course of Jerry's there that covered how to look for and outsource blog writing.
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These are well-tabulated milestones. They are also a good way of encouraging many people on this platform. Congratulations.
Joseph
Milestone 31:
Wealthy affiliate can no longer support my business and I have to leave for a better web host.