I Got Paid To Learn How To Make Money Online

Early 2011.

I had just left my dating coaching business. I decided to learn how to make a full time living online.

Maybe if I had the money, I would pay someone to teach me how to do it.

But I didn’t…. so I decided to do the opposite.

I was going to get paid to learn.

“For most recent college grads, you just spent the last four or so years paying tuition to get an education. Now that you have graduated, it’s your chance to get paid to learn.”
Mark Cuban, Billionaire Entrepreneur, “How to Win At The Sport Of Business”

Why I wanted to learn SEO (and what’s SEO, anyway?)

If you know what SEO is, skip to the next heading.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is basically the ability to get people to your website just when they’re looking for you. It is very powerful. I’ll explain through an example.

Let’s say you got home from work to find a huge leak in your bathroom. The floor is getting flooded and you’re worried about water damage to your apartment. It’s an emergency.

You don’t have a regular plumber, so you go to Google. Seeing that you live in Melbourne, you quickly look up “plumber melbourne”. You get a page with 10 results – websites of local plumbers in the area.

The top suggestions are paid advertisements. If you’re like most people, somehow you don’t trust them. You want the clean websites that Google chose to put at the top.

You scroll further down and click on the first non-paid result, “Jim’s Plumbing”. You call Jim, who comes over to your house, fixes the leak, and charges you $400.

Jim won you as a client because he was the first result in Google when you needed a plumber. The reason Jim was number 1 is called SEO.

That’s right. SEO is the art and science of manipulating Google search results to get a website to the top for a given search term.

For me, learning SEO meant that I could promote any website or business I decided to start.

Regardless of whether my future business was a dog-training blog or a site comparing sleeping masks – ranking it higher for relevant Google searches would get more interested visitors.

Getting more targeted traffic meant I would make more money – by having more people clicking on ads, buying products or services I promote and so on.

To make it all the more believable, one of my best friends built a network of SEO sites a few years before. He was funding his world travels completely on that income, without having to do any work for it.

He said he was too busy in his world travels and wouldn’t teach me. I had to learn on my own.

From Dating Coach to SEO

The idea was to get a job or an internship in an SEO company and learn the ropes by doing the work.

Was any SEO company in Melbourne keen to hire ex dating coaches?

The first order of business was to create a killer CV.

I took the time to portray all the lessons I learnt from running my own dating coaching business – from marketing and sales, to teaching and human skills.

I also put a lot of emphasis on an SEO project I did a few years before – a small website about sleeping masks that was making me about $25 a month. I didn’t know a lot about SEO, but at least it showed I knew the basics.

I applied to all the SEO jobs I could find in Melbourne with thoughtful cover letters and waited. Eventually, I was called in for 3 job interviews. I didn’t get any of those positions.

There were no more SEO positions advertised around town, so I made a list of 7 more SEO companies and started cold-calling them.

Of the first 5 companies I called, none was interested in hiring new employees or even in having me do work for free as an intern.

The following phone call I made was different. Very different.

Enter Troy

“Troy speaking.”

“Hi Troy, my name is Almog. I’m looking for work in SEO and was wondering if you guys were looking for new employees?”

“Hmmm…”

There was a 2-second pause. This was the best answer I got all day. The tension was palpable.

Troy continued. “That depends. What kind of person are you, Almog?”

Was this some kind of test? I had no idea how to answer that off the top of my head.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Are you… funny?”

Was this guy for real? Was I supposed to answer yes to that?

“Umm… I don’t know. Sometimes.”

That seemed to be a good enough answer.

“It’s interesting you called today. I was actually thinking of advertising for an employee but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Let’s meet, come over to the office tomorrow.”

He never even asked for my CV.

Two Unusual Job Interviews

The next day we met at his office and headed to a nearby café.

I was nervous, but as it turned out, there was no reason to be. This wasn’t that kind of interview.

Troy was cool and friendly and made sure I felt at ease. He said he only wanted to work with people he liked, and that’s why he asked those questions on the phone.

We were getting along pretty well and he promised to think things through and call me to let me know.

A week later he invited me for a second job interview – yet another unconventional one.

We met in another café… But this time, he was there with his wife. It turned out they were having lunch for their 4th wedding anniversary. I felt like I was totally intruding a private moment but they made me feel welcome and we all had a nice conversation.

After 30 minutes or so, his wife went home. He explained he wanted to hear her opinion of me – she had a good eye for people.

I guess I made a good enough impression on her too, because a few days later he called and offered me a 2-month paid trial, working at an hourly rate. Score!

The Actual Job

I did everything I could to help Troy. Initially most tasks had little to do with SEO work. But I kept gently prodding him to learn and help with the daily SEO tasks. Bit by bit, Troy started showing me the ropes, dropping some SEO knowledge bombs here and there.

He gave me some basic SEO tasks for a new client. First, I edited the client’s website to make sure it was optimized for Google. I made sure we got other sites linking to that site, an indicator of authority and relevance to Google.

Troy checked after me to make sure I was doing everything right.

2 weeks later the site showed up on Google. I was over the moon!

By the time the 2-month trial was over, Troy knew exactly what he wanted me to do, which was a lot – sales for new clients, managing the clients I sign and orchestrating all SEO work done for them.

He gave me a base salary and even incentivized me with a modest percentage from the fees of clients I sign up. It was effectively like running my own SEO agency – I got to learn SEO by getting my clients’ sites to the top. Perfect!

I asked a lot of questions to avoid mistakes, but after a few months I realized I already knew everything I had to do. Troy could relax into his tasks while I was busy growing his business for him and servicing my clients.

After about 12 months working there, I had signed up and managed 30 new clients. Effectively, this nearly doubled the business, which had 40 clients when I joined.

I guess I was the right guy at the right time. I had the hunger to make money from sales, and the motivation to continually get better at SEO – for both my clients and for me.

Building My Own Business

Knowing what SEO techniques were currently working for my clients made everything happen pretty quickly for my own business.

First, I started employing the same strategies on the only website I had – my shitty little eye mask side project. As it ranked higher, it got more visitors and went from making $25/month to $100/month. Not bad.

I bought a website that made $90 a month for the price of $900. This website was making money with traffic from Google but I knew I could get it a lot more traffic. After 6 months it was regularly making a $1000/month – more than what I bought it for.

I started some other projects – some made a bit more money, some lost money. I was learning at every step of the way.

SEO was great, but I also needed to learn more about business to reach a full-time income online.

I spent my spare time absorbing new relevant information. I listened to audiobooks while running or driving my car. I watched episodes of “Shark Tank” back to front. I was following SEO blogs and devouring biographies of successful entrepreneurs.

Even my social circle changed. I became good friends with some incredible online business people.

One guy was a top-tier copywriter, and was getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to write sales letters.

Another dude was making 6-figures a year from his online websites, and had been travelling the world for 3 years at that point.

Some of our conversations revolved around business. I mostly listened and asked questions. Sometimes I gave them ideas to implement in their business. They seemed to really believe in me, and so I believed in myself even more.

In November 2011, not even a year after starting to work for Troy, I had my big business breakthrough, when I went from making $50 a day to making $400 a day – overnight.

It happened pretty quickly for me, a combination of luck and obsession I guess.

Staying In The Job

After that, my business was making me way more money than my job was.

But I didn’t leave the job. I was ever so grateful to Troy for giving me a chance, and I had a responsibility for my clients. I wasn’t going to fuck things up by just leaving when I didn’t need the money.

Besides, as I was freaking out about my new success. Doomsday scenarios of everything going to shit were regularly going through my mind. If that ever happened, having a stable income wouldn’t be so bad .

I kept growing the business for 4 more months. Eventually, it became clear that I would move to South America, just like I planned. I found someone to take my place – a Melbourne friend of mine who happened to be a talented SEO specialist.

On April 2012, I finished working for Troy. I thanked him very much for everything he’s done for me. It was fourteen months in total.

When I look back on it all, the amazing thing is that my time working for Troy was a win-win-win situation.

I got paid to learn the skills I needed for my business,

I helped double my boss’s company in the process,

And we did this by helping our clients get more visitors to their sites and grow their own businesses.

Everybody won.

Goodbye Party. From left to right - Troy, me and my replacement Keith. Everyone happy.

Goodbye Party. From left to right – Troy, me and my replacement Keith. Everyone is happy.

Conclusions

Many new businesses fail. First time entrepreneurs often go into business unprepared. They lack specialized knowledge and don’t have enough cash to keep a new business afloat.

Finding the right job can give you the knowledge you need to succeed and the financial security to pursue it through ups and downs.

And so my advice to any newbie entrepreneur is this – find someone successful who knows the things you need to learn.

Find a way to give them value.

Pledge allegiance to them, to solve their problems, to grow their business and to help their clients. 1

The knowledge you receive in return would be priceless. And you might even get paid to learn it.

True, it may not be as romantic as burning the boats – quitting your job and devoting yourself completely to your new venture. You’ll have to grow your new business in your free time. But in all likelihood, success will come quicker and with fewer bumps along the way.

You just have to give up the notion of doing it all by yourself.

  1. Hat tip to Ben Hebert for inspiring some of the wording of this sentiment.

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