By Mark Thompson
Losing a job is one of the most stressful triggers a person can experience in their adult life. Anyone who’s been through job loss—or has had someone close to them get fired—knows that such an event causes tremendous upheaval in the world as they know it.
The good news is any ending can be turned into a new beginning. For example, you can start a business, become your own boss, and begin a new entrepreneurial life. In a three-year period, I went from being fired from my 9-to-5 job to launching my own marketing company and generating millions of dollars launching software products for other people.
I really think that being let go was a blessing in disguise. If I had never gotten fired from my agency job, I probably never would have had the determination to be an entrepreneur. I would have just stayed in my comfort zone and coasted through life with a mediocre job, salary, and life.
Here’s how being fired lead me to launch numerous online products and start my own company and how you can begin your own entrepreneurial journey on the right foot. Note that this approach may be unorthodox, but it proved to be very successful for me.
1. To start a business, first find your passion
Easier said than done, right? Keep in mind that it will take some time to find a professional path that excites you. I worked for different companies, including a car rental company, that didn’t quite fulfill me—that is, until I found a Data-as-a-Service company where I managed AdWords campaigns.
Working for the company made me realize online marketing had become my hobby and passion, and I was soon learning about SEO, email marketing, social media, and product creation in my spare time.
2. Build your experience
Spend several years polishing your knowledge within your field and try to find out everything there is to know about the job. I worked for several online marketing agencies in a row, each adding to my know-how. Soon, I had four years of real-world marketing experience under my belt.
I even started a blog and dabbled around in affiliate marketing. At the time, I wasn’t really doing it for the money—it was just for fun. Creating niche websites and putting my self-taught knowledge into practice was not only a part of my job—it was my hobby.
3. Change your perspective after getting fired
Perhaps this is your moment to stop thinking like an employee, and start thinking like an entrepreneur.
Be prepared that one day, your life may take a drastic turn, as it did in my case. One morning when I walked into the office, I was fired on the spot. I was left with a mortgage, bills, and a massive panic attack. Over the coming months, my previous boss even accused me of calling on his clients—which was nothing further from the truth.
Don’t take this as the end of the world. Use this momentum to change your way of thinking. For example, when I was let go, I understood that I never wanted to be put in a similar situation again and wanted to be the only one in charge of my financial freedom. From there on out, it became my personal mission to start a business and become my own boss.
4. Build a clientele
Now that you have the knowledge—but no job to use it for—make way for alternatives and start working solo. To do that, you need to build your client base.
After getting fired, I reached out to web design, marketing, and development agencies in the area to introduce my marketing services. Soon, I had partnered with four to five different companies as an independent contractor. This step can be considered the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey.
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5. Realize you want to achieve more
One day, I came across a forum for online marketers and digital product creators. Seeing dozens of people selling up to “10,000+ units” of their online products made me realize it was possible to generate a six-figure revenue selling a digital product on a forum. My mind couldn’t stop thinking about the concept of creating a product once and having it sell for me 24/7. This was an idea I could actually scale! I knew I had to dig into this and find out more.
6. Launch your first product—and fail!
There are only a couple of lucky stories that are based on launching an idea for the first time and succeeding from the very beginning. In most entrepreneurial cases, however, you have to be prepared to fail a couple of times along the road to success.
With my first product launch, I found a development company in Scotland that agreed to build a software product based on my own idea for $40,000. Unfortunately, the product sold only 30 copies at $47. As it turns out, creating the product was only half of the work, but I was not ready to give up just yet.
7. Find a mentor to help you start a business
Even though we might think we’re the smartest people in the world, in most cases, there are other professionals who know far more. When you first start a business, learning from such people will not only help you attain greater heights intellectually, but they can significantly boost the possibility of your success.
For example, after failing with my first product launch, I reached out to someone in the online marketing industry who agreed to mentor me and become a partner. He showed me exactly what I was doing wrong: he changed the pricing, added a sales funnel, and boom—over $100,000 in sales in seven days, with 3,000 to 4,000 new customers!
8. Perfect your business model
When you find your business model or strategy for success, work on it so that you know how it works inside and out. That’s what I did with my newfound product launch formula.
For the next two to three years, I scaled my business unlike anyone else. I would launch a product, create upsell products, and create the sales pages and JV/affiliate pages. Then I would set a launch date and promote the heck out of the product for one week. This strategy really worked well for me and lead to one six-figure launch after another, even with a few seven-figure launches mixed in between.
9. Turn your knowledge into a product and let the revenue grow
When the revenue starts rolling in, people will notice your success—and will want to replicate it. This is your chance to grab the opportunity by the horns and turn your knowledge into a viable product.
Before I knew it, I had people contacting me, telling me they had a product that they would like me to launch for them. So, during off-months when I didn’t have anything ready to launch, I would act as the product launch manager, taking 50% of the profits. Later on, I turned this knowledge into an all-in-one payment and affiliate management system that helps to sell products online.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d be able to accomplish something like this. I had felt a 3% salary increase each year was “doing well in life.” I am truly humbled by my journey.
Stop worrying and start a business today
If you feel like losing your job is the end of the world, think again. As one door closes, another one opens—and if you take the right steps, this might just be the opportunity for your entrepreneurial freedom. Good luck, and enjoy the ride!
RELATED: Where Do Successful Entrepreneurs Get Their Brilliant New Ideas From?
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