"Counting TEN THOUSAND in notes on my bed one month
to having the police taking my statement the next."
Today I'm going to share one of my biggest mistakes I made in business and the most important thing I learnt.To fully understand this crazy ride I went on we have to rewind the clock.
The year is 2008 and I was working a full time job and had a little on the side business selling sports trading card sand collectables that I had been doing for a couple of months. I walked into work one day to be given a redundancy letter. I was pretty shocked and upset about it.
I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and one day I thought why don't you take your side business full time and give it a crack ? I was telling everyone about it. Some of my friends and family thought I was stupid to do it and should go get a job.It was hard to hear that from people I cared about. I just new I had to do it.
About one month later I opened my shop. Never forget that day.In the first month after opening I'd been working day and night hustling. Doing anything I could to make money. Going to markets , collector fairs and selling on ebay. Spreading the word about my new shop to anyone and everyone.
After one month I had sold over $10,000 at my new shop. That's not even including all the ebay and market stuff. I felt like a king. Thinking this business stuff is easy.Counting out 10k on my bed thinking is this really happening.
I started to go out partying spending crazy amounts of money. One night I even shouted everyone at the bar a round of drinks. I just didn't care. My business was going to keep making me money.
The second month owning my shop I had stopped putting in all the effort and only sold four hundred worth of stock that month. Walking into my shop one day hung over to find the police there.Someone had broken in and taken over 30k of the inventory. After the police had taken my statement I tried to call my insurance company to find out they had went into liquidation.
2008
Everything seemed to be crashing down around me. At the time I was shattered but it was the wake up call I needed. Everything that had happened was my fault. Good or bad. The truth is the night I was rubbed was the only night I hadn't taken the valuable items home because I wanted to go out and party. I'd also bought the lowest possible insurance policy I could find.
I decided that day I was going to put in the work 100% Most people told me to just give up but I wasn't going too. I new what was possible if I was focused just like that first month.
Fast forward one year later and over 200k in revenue. My business was one of the most well known in my niche here in Australia.
While my business journey has been up and down , good and bad I've learnt so much along the way.
5 years ago I built a website and for the first 6 months didn't get sales but I knew it would work if I just kept working on it. Staying focused on what I wanted. With out my shopify website I never would of been able to buy the house I'm sitting in now. I even went overseas for the first time while making sales laying on the beach in Bali.
The most important thing I learnt is that sometimes business is hard and filled with ups and downs but you have to find away to keep pushing through the bad times and never giving up on what you really want. All the work you put in will pay off if you never give up and keep putting in the effort weather you're making sales or not. Learn new things and evolving as you go.
The person you're today isn't the person you will be in 5 years from now.
