Unique Story-Driven Path To Income Diversification - Part Four

Hello Future Proofer,

And we’re back…

Welcome to part 4 of the Corey Story Blueprint.

Last week, in part 3, we started defining our philosophy. And answer the question, “How does one live their best life.”

It’s been an interesting ride.

Unexpected Value

I really can’t stress to you how valuable this exercise is.

At first, I thought it was going to be a fun exercise to show you how you can use it to find your thing, but it has turned into something more.

It has forced me to examine everything in my life to assess what I have and what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I’ve had to open up some old wounds and face some of the fears I’ve collected over the years. Fears related to failed projects, imposter syndrome, going broke, and feeling like a loser, dad, and husband.

It’s forced me to reconsider what it means to be free.

And finally, it forced me to question how I plan to approach this newsletter going forward and what I need to share with you to make sure you're getting what you need.

That is a tricky thing for a guy (me) who has a lot to share and overthinks the hell out of everything.

This newsletter is a living, breathing experiment that is constantly changing. Like some of the values which I am thinking about simplifying. And how I’m defining my ideal lifestyle.

And, since I am building it in public, you get to watch it unfold, warts and all.

Thank you for sticking around.

Now, let’s get back to and see where this goes…

The Corey Story Blueprint Continued

Here’s what we covering on the Blueprint today.

Last week, we covered describing our ideal future and lifestyle. And described the enemy.

Today, we’re digging into beliefs others find offensive and explaining how the topics, interests, and skills that we outlined in the “Introduction” helped us toward our ideal lifestyle.

Section 1: My Philosophy (Continued)

Here are my answers…

What are beliefs you have that others would find extremely offensive?

When I started studying marketing and entrepreneurship in my early 30s, I felt like I had unlocked the secret of the universe.

I’d think, “Why the hell hasn’t anybody told me about this until now?”

I was so excited I started talking about it with everyone who’d listen.

“Hey, Look what I found. The answer to all our problems.”

But as it turns out, not everyone thinks the same thing.

I was surprised to hear people push back on some of the mindsets I was developing (what I’m now calling the Solopreneur Mindset).

I’d think to myself, “For years, we complain about our dead-end jobs and having to work until we die, but when I show a way out, you shit on it. WTF?”

It’s like I offended them.

I ran into this a lot back when I started in the mid-2000s.

People said I was crazy for believing that I could go from a $50K per YEAR cubicle worker to making $10K or more per MONTH.

Especially when I had three young kids, a mortgage, and roughly $100k in credit card debt.

And when I finally announced that I was going to do it, the “you're crazy dial" went to eleven…

"You're gonna do what? Quit your job, build websites, and put ads on Google? Man, you gotta stop reading those scamming websites and trying all those get-rich-quick schemes. But hey, good luck with that."

That Crazy Koehler Guy will never learn!

But you know what…

I f****n' did it.

I found a way.

BUT, I still hear it…

Even though I’m living proof that this stuff works and have a bank account to prove it, people still find a way to be offended by what I preach.

For example:

Who does he think he is…

…Telling people he likes working (“he’s probably just saying it to sell me something”).

…Telling everyone it’s never too late (“Come on, at our age? Starting something new is a young man's game. You're just being overly optimistic.")

… Telling everyone they don’t have to go back to school ("No way you can get ahead without a degree nowadays. You're underestimating the value of formal education.")

… Telling everyone they can keep up with the youngins’ ("Keep up with the kids? They were born with technology in their hands. And besides, nobody cares about experience anymore.”)

… Telling everyone we’ll live longer on average ("Living longer, maybe. But living better? That's a stretch. Retirement planning is hard enough without fairy tales.")

….Telling everyone he never wants to retire. ("Never retire? What a crock of shit. Sounds like you're afraid to slow down and enjoy life. Retirement is the reward at the end.")

…Telling everyone we are all Solopreneurs, independent contractors. Like it or not, traditional employment is going away. ("Not everyone's cut out to be their own boss. Some of us value the stability of a 9-5, thank you very much.")

… Telling everyone they can be a success story. ("A success story, huh? Easy to say when you've made it. Not all of us have what it takes or the luck.")

And I’m sure I’m missing some.

I never totally understand why they care so much.

My guess is a lot of the time, people either don’t know what they don’t know or their objections are a reflection of their unhappiness with themselves.

They’re unhappy with the limitations that were put on them and now choose to believe they have to wallow in those limitations.

The bottom line is that it all comes down to belief.

There are examples of success everywhere. And I guarantee most of those success stories involve overcoming obstacles ten to a hundred times more difficult than most of us would have to come over.

What is the importance of each topic, interest, or skill you've learned to help you on the way toward your ideal lifestyle?

Before I can tell you the topics, interests, and skills that helped get me there, I need to list a few of the principles and values that are part of what I would consider an ideal lifestyle.

• Get paid for what you're worth, not by the clock.

• Keep any boring work to a max of 1-2 hours a day.

• Minimize painfully redundant work whenever possible.

• Maximize evergreen work that you do once but pays over and over.

• Mix up how you make money, but definitely have some that keep coming in without extra work.

• Be your own boss so you can call the shots in your life.

• Work from wherever you want.

• Always be learning and trying new things; it keeps things interesting and you up-to-date.

And here’s a quick recap of some of the skills, interests, and topics that helped me get there:

• Music/Guitar

• Email Marketing

• Writing/Blogging

• Affiliate marketing

• Native advertising

• Web development

• Content marketing

• NFL Fantasy Football

• Continuous Learning

• Personal development

• Selling digital products

• Pay Per Click Marketing

• Search Engine Marketing

Here’s how they all fit together starting from the beginning.

See if you can identify some of the common themes.

Pay-per-click marketing and affiliate marketing were the skills that got things rolling for me, and I started putting money in my pocket.

They are a great way to make money working on topics you are interested in.

For me at first, it was guitar.

I’ve been a guitar player since I was a teenager, so when I saw that I could get a commission for selling guitar courses, it was a no-brainer and it was fun.

I just copied a unique tracking link to the guitar course website and pasted it into some ads I created on Google. These ads targeted people who were actively searching for guitar courses.

Then, all I had to do was to take 5 - 10 minutes to check on the ads every day or two to make sure nothing was going off the rails ad spend-wise - and the most fun part, check sales.

For a while there, it was literally like I had a money-printing machine (I know, horribly cliche, but 100% true).

For every $1 I put in the machine, I would get $2, $3, or more out. I was grossing hundreds of dollars on some days - and it was really exciting and addicting.

That’s a technique called “direct linking.” unfortunatly, Google banned direct linking a few months after that, and I was dead in the water.

Now, If I wanted to keep running the ads and keep the money-printing machine humming, I needed to learn a new skill - building a website.

So that’s what I did.

I learned how to build WordPress websites and built two; one that was music-related and one for fantasy football.

This led to me discovering even more ways to make money.

Let’s start with the fantasy football website.

Basically, I would write two blog posts per week. one on Monday and one on Thursday. There weren't many affiliate programs for sports that paid great back in 2007 (unlike today, where there are thousands), so I made money with another Google product called Adsense - a type of native advertising.

With Google Adsense, you would copy some code and paste it into your blog post or other strategic location on your website.

I’m sure you see them…

Then, if a website visitor clicked on the ad, Google would get paid by the advertiser and share part of the profit with me.

When traffic to the website was heavy, I could make a couple hundred dollars a month. But that was before daily fantasy sports came along and the fantasy football season only lasted 5- 6 months tops. Ad revenue went dry for half the year; I wanted a year-round, evergreen revenue source.

But again, I learned some more skills, more ways to make money, and a few valuable lessons.

For example, I learned from the fantasy football website was I needed to collect emails.

When you have an email list, you can build a relationship with the readers, keep them reading your content, and send them affiliate offers.

Also, having an audience is valuable to sponsors, too.

I had 10,000-15,000 visitors to my posts early in the fall. By not collecting a percentage of those, I cost myself hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars.

Now, I needed to learn email marketing (see how the skills start stacking up?).

So, to do that, since it was the off-season for football, I turned my focus back to the music website.

I started collecting emails from people who visited the website. I’d offer things like cheat sheets, checklist, courses, and more in exchange for their email.

It has been super valuable, and I still have it today; 10+ years later. I’ve made thousands in commissions offering members affiliate offers over the years; they’ve purchased music lessons, musician resources, music equipment, marketing tools, etc.

I still make a few sales from blog posts and autoresponder messages that I created YEARS ago (I call that mailbox money. It’s an old direct response marketing term for checks that come in the mail. For getting paid over and over for work you did once).

I’ve also made some money selling digital products like courses.

And again, some of those courses are still active today. I am still making money from something I created in 2015.

Here’s a screenshot from a few days ago.

And those are just the small streams of income I have created over the years.

Fast forward to today, I’ve been grateful to have translated all those skills into a 10-year career as a full-time solopreneur.

Almost every one of those skills I learned 15+ years ago is still highly relevant and has a hand in paying me between $10,000 - $18,000 per month in recurring income today.

To be continued…

Up Next

Next week, we’re going to work on Section 2: Education.

Here is the outline for that section…