Ryan McLean : Slightly Unconventional

#34 Bummed On My Business Thurs 6th Aug 2015

Sickness hit our house hard this week and I’ve had some time off. I was bummed on my business at the start of the week and was a bit bored.
 
Hey guys! Ryan here from Instructions Not Included. Now I have not been updating in a couple of days because I have not actually worked in a couple of days. I have had 3 sick children, all with fevers and it has been absolutely hectic at our house. No one has been going to school or Kindie. Everyone has been home. I have been sick as well so I guess one of the benefits of having an online business is that I can take that time off and I do not have to tell a boss or anything like that.
 
And if you would like to answer, it is you guys because you are like, “Ryan, why was there not an episode? What the f man? I have been hanging out for it!” Actually no, if there is anyone listening or hanging out for the episodes because these have not gotten live yet. But I hope you guys are and I hope you are enjoying that.
 
So anyway, I had a few days off and now back into it. I was actually pretty bummed on my business at the start of the week, as you guys know. If you have been following, I totally go up and down about the business in terms of ideas as well about how I feel about business. And I guess the last little while I have just been again a bit bored with my business because it is not really challenging. I spent so many years.
 
I spent 7 or 8 years just trying to make this online business thing work, trying to make this viable, trying to make it generate a full-time income, trying to make this work for me. And it is just struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle and then finally now I am at the point where I am making decent revenue like last month I did almost 7 grand in revenue and I am paying for my way of life. I am paying for my family.
 
We have a bit of savings as well so if the income stops today, it would take us probably 6 months to completely run out of money and enter an oh-my-effing-whoa we just need to work something out. So it is good to have that buffer there and I guess I just have not been challenged that much and so that has been frustrating me because I know that my system works and all I need to do is put more into the system. So if I put more podcast episodes, if I create more products, if I make more email marketing campaigns and just do what I am doing,  do, do , do, then it is going to equal more money. More money.
 
I do not know but something about that is just a bit boring for me. More money, why am I bored about more money? I do not know. It is a bit stupid.
 
I am very grateful. I am super grateful for what I have but I guess my passion comes out of being challenged, wanting to learn things, wanting to do really difficult tasks, wanting to really grasp something that is difficult to understand and to make it work like the way that my brain works, it is like I do not understand something at all and then I study it, study it and study it and then all of a sudden, finally something clicks and I just see the whole picture and understand the full concept of something.
 
And so sometimes like I would listen to an audio book and I would have to listen to it 3 or 4 times and I get a little bit out of each one but I might listen to it the fourth time and then I am like, Oh my goodness! I get it now! Okay, that makes so much sense. And all the little bits that I learned, they are great by themselves but when I can tie the whole concept together and understand everything that is just when I become like a powerhouse, when I understand something.
 
And I think in the last 18 months or 2 years of working on my own as well as the 6 or 7 years that I did part-time or on the side was me really trying to understand how things work, how my business model works and all of a sudden they clicked and I understood it and then I grow bores.
 
So I guess I am just trying to stir things up a bit, trying to make things a bit more interesting. I am pretty passionate about the property industry and helping people in this industry and making this industry better because there are just so many people wanting to rip people off and one of the things that I am considering doing – I think I have talked about this before, is actually sharing my income, like my revenue and some of my expenses on my website, on onproperty.com.au.
 
I could share with you guys as well but I just feel like being transparent and being someone who is transparent about how much I earn will just open people’s eyes to the industry and will increase people’s expectations when they deal with other parties, like if they know how much I am making and they might want to know how much is that free property advisor who is actually making $40,000 in commission, how much are they actually making from me? And I feel like being transparent, even if I am not earning that much at this point in time -$7,000 revenue is nice but I think people will understand it is a business and a $7,000 revenue is only like $90,000 a year or something like that, that is nice but that is not massive.
 
But if it gets to the point where I am earning $20,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 a month to have that transparency there and to say Look, this is what I earn, and if you are not happy with what I earn, totally do not buy my products and just give people that transparency and if people are like, Hang on, you are earning $100,000 a month. Why are you charging this much? To give that transparency to people would be pretty interesting and there could be backlash from it for people.
 
The only way you make money is not through property, it is through teaching people about property.
 
Oh yeah, that is my situation. So I think I am going to do that. I think a lot of people will say to me Why are you doing that? Because I know a lot of people in the internet marketing space do it and people feel like they do it to show, Okay, they are teaching about internet marketing. How to make money online. It is their proof of how much money they make. But then there are these people, like Justin and Joe from EmpireFlippers.com, they put up their revenue reports but they are not teaching people how to make money online, they are brokering websites.
 
So they definitely do not need to do that but it is just interesting to look at their things, and because of them doing that I engage with them and I am going to do an interview with Justin and we are going to talk about monetization strategies of podcasting. The fact that they do that opens doors for them. The fact that they are so transparent in their business may make some people want to compete with them. But for most people like myself, it makes me trust them. It makes me really grateful to them.
 
It makes me want to work with them and help them in whatever way I can just because they have that transparency and that trust there and I just want to see them to be great people. You know, they did over a half million dollars in revenue last month and I am not sitting there and say, Whoa, why are they charging 15% in brokering fees? Like this is ridiculous, they are making too much money. I am like, Good on you! Go and smash it! Like you are offering so much value, good on you. So yeah, I guess I will give you guys feedback on how that goes.
 
I was speaking to Ben who is a buyer’s agent that I partner with and I was telling him about these plans because he pay me a referral fee and that was going to be in there and he was just like dude, I do not care. You are transparent about getting a referral fee from me. Anyway, so it is no big issue. He was like then you do not need to do it. And he was kind of encouraging me out of it because thinking there is no point. And I totally understand that. There is no point.
 
There is no reason but I feel in me, there is some point. There is some reason. And I just should do it and then after I do it I find the point is, what the reason is. And so that is kind of cool. I did an interview today for podcastfast.com, edited a bunch of things, did another video for On Property, and so I have done a bit today. And I have done pretty well.
 
I did terrible, for those of you who wanted an update of my super smash bros tournament because you who is listening to this is not passionate about Super Smash Bros may…, right? Okay. For those of you who do not care about this, you can tune off now because there is no more start up stuff for this episode. But in my Super Smash Bros tournament, totally annihilated. Lost every game, lost every set, did not win one game at all. I play as Peach, Princess Peach, she is the best. Lost completely. But then I played a bunch of friendlies, I bought a couple of those and I feel like I got so much better.
 
I am really excited to go to my next one which probably will not be for another 2 months or something like that. But that was really fun. I bought new CIT TV, like one of those TVs with a big backs because apparently you have to play on those because otherwise there is lag on the HD TVs between when you actually input your control and what actually happens on screen.
 
So you need a super old TV to go with my super old game cubes. I bought one of those and it will actually arrive in a couple of days so I can practice properly in a tournament-like scenario, and I  have met a few cool people as well, someone in Gold Coast, someone in Brisbane, who hopefully I can meet up with some nights and practice with them and get better. So stay updated for my next tournament in a couple of months because I do plan on winning not just some games bot some sets as well. So there is a lot of practice to go in until then.
 
All right guys! That is it for me today. Until next time, if you want instructions go and buy some furniture.



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