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Article originally appeared in Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/under30network/2016/07/20/how-a-28-year-old-got-fired-then-built-a-500k-a-month-business-while-traveling-the-world/
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It was
2009 and Crestani, then 21, had fled to Thailand after dropping out of
college. He was bumming around the country on a small loan from his
family and trying to “find” himself. To that end, he brought along
spiritual works like The Bible and the Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture).
But his saving grace turned out to be a business book: The 4-Hour
Workweek by Tim Ferriss, the now-classic manual for breaking free of
the nine-to-five by building an online business
John
Crestani. Photo: Melly Lee
Ferriss’s
key tenet in the book is to stop trading time for money and build
businesses that can, eventually, operate almost entirely on their own
after you set them up: passive income.
“I was at
a point in my life where I had very little direction, didn’t know where
I was going, and had this void,” says Crestani. “I thought ‘This sounds
freaking awesome and I want to do it.’”
And he
did. Crestani used his own hustle and Ferriss’s tips to build an
affiliate marketing network that currently generates $250,000 to
$500,000 per month, enables him to travel the world, and scales
on-demand.
While
plenty of people aspire to join other followers of Tim Ferriss’s
lifestyle design, Crestani is its high prophet. But he didn’t get there
overnight.
So he
re-enrolled in school and attempted to strike it rich catering to the
needs of his fellow students. Exposed to computers before he reached
double digits, Crestani used his technical know-how to acquire the test
answers to every online course for every major from his university—and
he used those answers just as you might expect.
Years
of Failure Before 4 Hours of Work
It took
Crestani years of false starts and experimentation before he finally
hit upon a winning, profitable business.
His first
shot at entrepreneurship was selling products on eBay. That venture
brought him $1,000 to $2,000 per month, and a call from PayPal’s
security team. There was a problem with the business model: Crestani
was selling products PayPal didn’t approve of. His PayPal account was
shut down and that business shuttered.
“I had all
the answers, and sold that knowledge,” he explains. “It was a weird
feeling. I never realized a PDF file could be so valuable. It was my
first experience of trading knowledge for money,” says Crestani.
The result
was his first $1,000 day. But the celebration (and the cash flow)
didn’t last. Crestani was suspended when the school suspected he
acquired the test answers through illicit means.
Despite
the failures, Crestani never lost sight of the ultimate goal. “The
4-Hour Workweek kept hustle on my mind. It planted the seed, the idea
that you don’t need to trade time for money.”
Ironically,
he was just around the corner from the success the book preaches. All
it would take was Crestani getting fired from a nine-to-five job.
Crestani
and his crew at a team retreat in Morocco. Photo: John Crestani
From
Hired to Fired
At
22-years-old, Crestani got a “real job” working for a marketing firm in
Los Angeles. The firm specialized in pay-per-click advertising on
search engines. Crestani taught himself the trade and was soon running
more than 20 client accounts, drafting compelling ads, and smart
bidding strategies to drive sales.
He got so
good at paid advertising that he multiplied a client’s business by 40X.
His firm’s boss was bringing in more than $110,000 per month of extra
business from the account. And Crestani was now an online advertising
star within the company.
So he did
what any self-respecting professional would do: he politely asked for a
raise. “My boss looked at me across the table when I asked for the
raise and said, ‘Or what?’” recalls Crestani.
Instead of
appreciating his value to the company, his boss taunted him and told
him to get back to work. Crestani was flabbergasted.
Crestani
mentally checked out of the job from that point on and eventually got
fired. But he’d been hustling on the side to get clients for himself to
keep him afloat while he pursued the real dream: build a
multi-million-dollar business where he’d never have a boss again.
Minting
Money
Crestani
had shown he was a pro at online advertising. He knew he wanted to
travel the world. And he desired independence from the traditional
shackles of corporate life.
He hit
upon the idea of promoting products developed by other companies,
rather than spending massive amounts of time and money creating and
promoting his own. He learned that homeopathic products through a
select set of providers gave him the greatest margins, so he deployed
his advertising knowledge to generate sales for these wares.
Every
customer Crestani convinces to buy generates a significant cut for his
company. In one example, he says he receives $40 for every sale of a
$90 product. Crestani’s firm Nutryst also recruits and teaches other
affiliates to sell these products for them, creating a network effect
that generates massive revenue well into the six figures every month.
But his
secret sauce is canning and cloning himself: he screen-records the ad
campaigns he creates step-by-step (his present focus is on Facebook
advertising) on his laptop and sends it to his team so they can
duplicate his results. That’s been a huge piece to Crestani’s success.
“Every million-dollar ad campaign I launch, I record myself obsessively
on my computer in the creation process. I pass the modules along to my
team and make sure they can do a job just as good as I can.”
The result
is a business that scales whenever he needs it to. All Crestani and his
team of ten need to do is up their ad spend in the right areas and
watch profits swell accordingly.
That
passion and the profits it generates allow him to travel the world at
will. He’s worked extremely hard to develop a lifestyle that isn’t
beholden to bosses or showing up in an office. And the rewards, while
lucrative, are about way more than money.
Crestani
says he was a loner growing up, obsessed with computer games and
ignorant of what things like world travel could offer. Now, the
28-year-old freshly married millionaire is planning his next global
adventure while propelling his firm to even greater heights.
“I wanted
to open myself up to new experiences,” he says of his leap into
entrepreneurship.
“Sitting
in my room playing Diablo II didn’t seem like a good future. So I
changed it.”
John
Agreed To An Exclusive Online Training for Online Readers Only of His
Money System.
Warning:
Due to limited student availability, the last session will be
nov 15,2019
Article originally appeared in Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/under30network/2016/07/20/how-a-28-year-old-got-fired-then-built-a-500k-a-month-business-while-traveling-the-world/
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