My First Digital Sale

And today I’ll be sharing the story of my first digital sale:

And first I want to give you some context, discuss a little bit my background, and how it all started so you can better understand my excitement and what this first digital sale actually means for someone making it.

And my first digital sale happened in 2015 but let’s go back a little bit in time, 2008 when we had the European sanctions against my country.

It was an illegal move by the EU and the state issued government bonds to save the banks, and we the people played the role of guarantor, and although we guaranteed this money, the loans people had were not written off, so it was the same story, us, the people saving the banks, saving the politicians, saving the country and being enslaved once again, with a debt that was illegal, and it was FIAT money, it was fake.

And…everything changed. I watched businesses closing down, it was a very challenging period for a few years, and so I started looking for other things at that time.

I was a hotel owner and still, I am, but things really changed and so I started researching, and in 2014, in the fall, I started researching online for other opportunities and I came across a very beautiful business model.

And before I discuss this amazing business model that got me started online, I want to show you how many different business opportunities existed back then, in 2014,.

And this period was very intense, I was reading blogs and articles, I was visiting websites, subscribing to newsletters, discussing with people on forums, communities, networks, everywhere to find something attractive and I did not want to invest big in buying stuff, I wanted to invest in time, and find something that was low-entry…

and so I came across eCommerce. And it was a very lucrative business model, there were many people having success with Amazon and other digital marketplaces, but it sounded too complicated, I did not want to buy inventory and having to store things before I could sell…

and I came across dropshipping, where you could bypass this problem of buying inventory, you could partner with wholesalers to get them to ship products to your customers, but again, it sounded too complicated, I wanted something more flexible…

and I came across investing programs: there was an ocean of investing opportunities. Like HYIPs, high-yield investment programs, and all of these companies were fraudulent…

and I came across forex and binary options, and PTCs and GPTs, and exchanging links, and other business opportunities, and nothing concrete, nothing solid, and I came across revshare companies, again, most of them were fraudulent, and so I kept on researching…

And at some point, I started searching for a specific company called “Amway”. Amway is an American MLM company producing a wide range of physical products and I was once a distributor for them, maybe 1, 2 years tops, when I was a teenager, and that time I was at the university, and our family’s manufacturing company, and I was searching for other opportunities and I came across Amway, I was approached by another distributor, he recruited me and one colleague that I had from the high-school, and it was very tough, very difficult to climb up the ladder in an MLM company.

And MLM stands for multi-level marketing, multiple levels of recruitment, and here’s the thing:

Most of MLM companies are not legitimate, they base the majority of their sales on their members instead of retail sales, and that’s a big problem but Amway was one company that stood the test of time, and at that point, I wanted to check if this company was still active, and there were many years passes since I stopped working for them, and I came across an article that was discussing Amway and comparing Amway to another business model called “affiliate marketing”.

And that grabbed my attention because I wanted to get involved with a business model related to marketing, because I learned marketing at the university, and I had experience with MLM, but I wanted something different.

Something better because with MLMs companies, those that make most of the money, these are the owners, and their friends may be, and whoever got in the company early.

And Amway was maybe 20 years in business when I entered their pyramid, so it was very difficult for me to recruit people and earn some commissions and the author of the article was comparing multi-level marketing with affiliate marketing and it grabbed my attention and so I started searching more in this direction.

And affiliate marketing sounded like a very promising business model back then, compared to the other business models, and it was low-entry, you could start with only a website or a blog, or just a podcast, or video channel, or some people start with just a social media account, and here’s how it works:

You are promoting products and services from other companies that exist in the market, in exchange for commissions.

You are not getting paid for advertising these products and these companies but you have the chance to earn high commissions, big commissions.

Commissions can range from 10% to 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70%, or even more in some cases with digital products and membership subscriptions, it depends on the company you’re cooperating with.

You only have to be selective and choose trustworthy partners, because you are making recommendations, you are helping people with their decisions, and you only have to bring traffic to your website or your blog, your podcast, your video channel, and send this traffic to your partners so they can convert those visitors.

And you don’t have to worry about customer service, or after sales, or any service at all, you are just sending traffic and you earn commissions, and it’s a very lucrative model because you can expand your business, you can partner up with more and more companies as you progress, there is no limit on how much you can make.

So, I decided to dive deeper into this business model, and after a while, I came across an amazing community dedicated to affiliate marketing called “Wealthy Affiliate”.

And this community helped me get started with this business model, so I decided to get a domain name and in December 2014, I believe on December 28 of 2014 I bought the domain name WebMarketSupport to get started with a blog, a marketing blog reviewing companies and business models that came my way during my research, and my ultimate goal at that time was to transform this marketing blog into an agency in the future.

That’s why I chose this domain name, supporting the market of the web. And so I bought this amazing domain name, WebMarketSupport, with the intention to build a marketing blog, and the ultimate goal was to transform this blog into a marketing agency in the future.

And blogging seemed the most attractive and easiest method for me compared to other methods like podcasts or videos, and so I started with this website.

And the community of Wealthy Affiliate helped me with their amazing training, and they also have a platform where you can build websites using WordPress, and so the first thing I had to learn was building websites using WordPress and so I took courses on web development, web design, and coding like HTML, CSS, Javascript, I was learning everything I could, to get started, to understand how websites work, and what to do with traffic, people and visitors, how to manage and run this website…

and then I started learning everything I can about affiliate marketing. And Wealthy Affiliate has the most comprehensive training in the world about this industry, they cover everything you need and I took all the courses and completed all the training that existed back then, now they have added tons of training throughout the years, and I was learning affiliate marketing, I took courses on SEO, search engine optimization, optimizing your website for the search engines and for people, and I took courses on traffic acquisition and copywriting, and social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising.

And I was learning and blogging, reviewing business opportunities, and I was helping people avoid fraudulent companies and connecting them with legitimate ones.

And after one-two months, the blog started getting some traffic, people passing by, and they were leaving comments, they were discussing with me…

and…we’ve come to the point…after 2-3 months, when I was learning everything about online marketing like a maniac and I was blogging…there it was, it happened, my first digital sale, my first significant digital sale…

because I was making some money with other revshare companies and other gambling stuff, nothing serious, nothing solid, just in the beginning to cover my expenses at Wealthy Affiliate community, the minimal expenses, it was $47 per month? now, I’m still a member, now I’m paying $29 per month I think, so I wanted to cover these expenses, and so I got involved with revshare companies and other gambling stuff, and after 2-3 months, my first digital sale happened.

And I could not be more excited, I still remember this day, and it proved to me that what I was doing was working.

And it was an exceptional feeling, and actually this sale it was not just 1 sale, this was a membership subscription, and so I earned recurring revenue, the person that took this subscription, he signed up for a whole year, so it was like a 12-month, 12-part sale, and this person renewed this yearly subscription for 4 years in a row, so it was like a sale that we can count it as 48 sales.

It was amazing!

It was proof that what I was doing was working, and so I kept on blogging, I keep on bringing traffic, and the traffic grew, so my website was getting some traction and attention there, I was doing something.

And after this sale, after this amazing event, sales started happening more often, and I was able to earn recurring revenue in some cases when you earn recurring revenue, this can add up really quickly, and when you are cooperating with more companies, you’re adding more income streams, this is when your business started to take off, and this is when you really expand and scale your business.

But the most amazing thing about affiliate marketing, about this business model, was that it helped me enter an amazing industry, the knowledge industry, the self-education industry.

And affiliate marketing was my entry point, my passport if you will to enter this amazing industry, the knowledge industry.

It’s the industry where we are getting educated by other people and then we are educating others with this knowledge. We are transferring knowledge, we get knowledge, we receive knowledge, and then we pass this knowledge to other people.

And I’ll be showing you in the next days, all my sources of knowledge, all the people that I learned from, so you can better understand how this works.

And this was just the story of my first digital sale, but we’ll dive deeper into this industry, the knowledge industry, the self-education industry, and I’ll be sharing with you case studies and examples so you can better understand the potential and the beauty, the awesomeness of this industry.

You have to do with people, you are helping people, and you are serving them at the highest level possible, this is the industry that I am so proud of being a member of since 2014.

And I entered this industry without even knowing it but I’ll be revealing more information in my next videos…