Starting an online business that can produce passive income is something many aspire to and I was one of them. It has always been a dream of mine to be able to work from anywhere so that I can visit my family more often that lives in different parts of the world. Many quit trying but I strongly believe anyone can have their piece of the pie and I am glad I persevered.

My Story

John ZeemanHi, my name is John.

I am now in my 40s and live in South Africa. Finding a good job is not easy and I found myself without work twice in my lifetime. It is the worst feeling ever, not being able to earn an income with bills to pay and a wife to support. It brings you to the point being willing to do any meagre task for some income. So I did:

I started my own business by going around to car dealerships offering to wash their cars. I didn’t realise it was actually a competitive market here and because of my ignorance of it all, I kept on asking. Then one car dealership accepted and asked me to clean a car for them as a demo. With glee in my heart I borrowed money from a friend R300 ($22) to buy the basics: A bucket, chamois, soap, toothbrush, cloths, sponge, car polish and shoe polish for the tires; since I couldn’t afford silicone. They let me use their high-pressure water hose and vacuum cleaner. I took my time, but cleaned everything from top to bottom, inside-out; including the engine. It paid off!

They hired me to officially wash their cars if I can promise that all the cars I clean will look like the demo. After a few months I hired 2 jobless people from the street and taught them how to do the work. By then, I bought my own equipment including a polishing machine. My little business grew to multiple car dealerships plus servicing the public by cleaning their cars at their homes. The downside was that I borrowed the money from my friend in exchange for 50% of my business income. This made me even run at a loss in some quiet months, but I quickly learned to compensate for those during the busy months. I still had to work 7 days a week to make ends meat but it was a living. I physically helped with the cleaning when someone was off sick, travelled from one dealership to the other making sure things are running smoothly, handle complaints, collecting debt, do invoicing, distribute chemicals, maintaining equipment and then you do it all over again the next month. Just managing the workers alone was tiresome. I haven’t been able to spend time with my wife or family and only had two days off in a year: Christmas day and New Year’s day. I then found a part-time job (miles away from where my little business was) as IT desktop support for a company. It was a job I knew very well. I started to neglect my little car cleaning business because I could not always be there to make sure things go smoothly. My small business, that lasted 7 years, finally crumbled when I was asked to work full time as IT support. I grabbed the opportunity and they offered me the salary I wanted.

It was a well paying job and I finally had leave days – happy times! For some reason though I stayed the only desktop support person working for this software company. For each company they developed their custom software to, I had to do full IT support on site. (Repairing laptops, PC’s, Printers, be server admin for the domains, networking, exchange, hosting websites, etc) They grew to about 7 companies I had to manage and even had to fly regularly to some of them. There was a lot of overtime and away time from home again, but the pay was good, there was leave and so I worked as hard as I could. Till one day (after 5 years) the company went bankrupt and I was given less than 24 hours notice. There was no back pay, my leave was not paid out and I was once again without a job. Now deep in my 30s, I started looking for something else and decided to add CISCO (CCNA) certification to my name, passed it and still I was without a job for almost a year! It was during that time that I decided to look for ways to make money online:

My Making Money Online Pursuit

I was familiar with the term SEO but not fully sure how it all works. So naturally I started searching the Internet for information on: “How to do SEO” or “How to rank number one on Google”. That let me to fall for every trick and scam in the book. I only spent money and wasted my time always trying the next certain method or loophole that will make me tons of money. I never made a dime. I started afresh many times and finally decided to get a website (which is the right thing to do), optimized it for SEO (great idea), got some social accounts trying to drive some traffic (all good), wrote articles and so forth (Content is important). But still I made only 2 sales in 3 years! I loath the online scammers preying on the poor and desperate; stealing their money in exchange for empty promises, getting rich quick schemes and making a living out of it. Today is different. Today I am building my dream and I finally feel relieved that my search is over. Now I want to help you too.

WHY I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE

It really is the worst thing when you are so desperate for some money and someone cheats you out of your last penny for a cheap trick and you have nothing to show for it. At the end you simply lose trust in humanity and see a scam in every offering and yet, you’ve done it again: You fell for someone’s well-spoken words that lures you over the edge of the cliff promising genuineness and caring. Why should these people deserve to make a dime on the Internet? I want to help you so that you also can see that anyone can have a successful online business. That you can make your dream come true. That there is a community out there that cares and is supportive, encourages you and teaches you the right way.

For now: Know that there is no quick way to make money online, no one button traffic solution, no loopholes, no secret to getting ranked. Non of that is true. I once paid $300 for a course on getting massive free traffic – It was a series of videos showing me how to create an account with Facebook and how to create a fan page. I am sure most are capable of doing that without paying $300 to figure it out! Those are the reasons I truly want you to succeed and avoid these frustrating traps that robs you from your dreams.

THE GOAL OF WORK TO LIVE FREE

  1. To finally get you started on achieving your dream of building a successful business online.
  2. To have you plug into a fantastic community that cares, assists, teaches and encourages you every step of the way.
  3. To see you succeed because it feels good to see when honesty and transparency pays off.

If you ever need a hand or have any questions, feel free to leave them below and I will be more than happy to help you out.

All the best,

John
info@worktolivefree.com

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