Book Excerpt see a way through, and a way out.


So maybe you’re wondering what jobs we were doing to cause us so many headaches?


Greg: I’m a techie, but a late starting one, so went to university at the age of twenty-nine. I quickly discovered that late starters work harder than students fresh out of school, because they have more to lose. So I blitzed my university degree majoring in Information Science and Computer Science. I then worked ten years as a programmer and web developer for one of the largest news and financial service companies in the world.


Fiona: I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1987, and achieved my dream job as a Group Financial Controller in 2000. I worked for a company, which granted me a three- month sabbatical on full pay in 2009, in reward for nine years of corporate dedication. Given that we’re both Kiwis born and bred (but now call London home), there was no hesitation in deciding to travel the world again! Greg: I wanted time off


to travel


together for three months, so gave up my job as I was completely fed up with the corporate treadmill and working hard just to fill someone else’s pockets. In March 2009, we happily set off flying around the globe. We went skiing at Lake Louise in Canada where we experienced the biggest dump of fresh powder ever. Following that we went dog-sledding for a week in the Yukon, with just us and our dogs in the crisp white, blanketed wilderness.


We timed the cherry blossom blooming perfectly in Japan for a month, leaving us with a lasting impression that Japan is all pink. And to try and beat that we spent two weeks in Borneo, which included a hot sticky night sleeping in a native longhouse, and an endless trek up Mt Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South East Asia. We couldn’t go all that way without visiting our family and friends in New Zealand, our three months culminating with a relaxing week by the pool on the island paradise of Koh Samui, Thailand.


18 entrepreneurcountry


And that’s when our lives changed. That was our turning point.


Fiona: We were on the last day of our fantastic world trip, living it up in Bangkok, when I got a phone call from work telling me not to turn up for work on Monday. That was a bombshell! Those nine long dedicated years of tedious hours, hard slog, fractious managers and building up a strong, diligent team of efficient and effective workers – all gone in one phone call.


Redundant


Fiona: I was devastated and there were certainly floods of tears. It was so gut wrenching to be dispensed like that with no second thought. I felt used and dispirited. The hardest part to swallow was that we’d been maxing out our credit cards, spending recklessly on our trip of a lifetime but, more importantly, there was no warning of it coming! Nevertheless … the old saying “every cloud has a silver lining” is never truer than in this situation. There we were an accountant and a techie, both out of work together. What do we do now?


That’s Internet


when our Marketing


journey started.


Completely out of the blue, an email landed in our inbox that contained an invitation to a three-day seminar. It


was a pitch


fest where each speaker sells their stuff at the end of their presentation. We hung on to every word of every presenter! We wrote a whole book of notes, as it was all totally new to us.


Fiona: With my redundancy money burning a hole in my pocket, I was keen to invest in our


new venture together. So we signed up for almost everything going. Internet Marketing, Personal Development and the odd shyster! We invested 50 grand in our education and our self- development! 50 grand! Some of this investment was well spent, and some of it wasn’t. This book is the result of those experiences, good and bad – enabling us to impart the good advice and help you avoid the bad.


We thought we could do it by ourselves but we quickly discovered the internet was like the old Wild West, full of cowboys, hustlers and sharks.


It took us many months of research, trial and error,


persistence and,


perseverance, to finally start realising our dreams. It won’t take you as long and you won’t experience as much despair because you’ll be able to learn from our mistakes.


And there are rewards along the way.


Read next month’s magazine for the second installment of Greg and Fiona’s story.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60