My Story in Online Entrepreneurship

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Welcome back!

It’s great to have you for this Tuesday's edition of the newsletter.

Writing my emails to you all has become one of my favorite things to do throughout the week.

How a tool kit and waterproof camping bags changed my life…

I couldn’t believe it…

“I was really doing it!”

It was just after midnight on a Tuesday.

I still remember sitting in my freshman 10x10ft dorm room.

My roommate and I’s bunks were set up across the room. our beds were raised up so the desk and clothes space was underneath.

There I was. The glow of my Macbook Pro computer screen in the darkness as I complete the modules of an Udemy drop-shipping course, a course that’s going to change my life…

Or so I thought.

Earlier that day, I had been scanning the internet for something that I could do to make money while still in college.

My $300 per month student-worker job loading the printer with paper and making the coffee every morning for business professors wasn’t going to cut it.

I need to find something else.

So, I came across this term “drop-shipping.”

“What on earth is that??”

As I would later learn, it’s a way to add absolutely no value to the world and make a lot of money by buying cheaper products, usually from China, and listing them for a higher price on Amazon.

So, I went through the course, completely stoked about it.

Followed everything step by step.

And listed my very first item for sale.

This is exciting! I’m going to be a drop shipping millionaire… just like the guy who sold me the course.

My very first item?

A toolkit I found on Home Depot. It was slightly marked down and something similar was listed for a bit higher on Amazon so I went for it.

I copied the listing almost word for word and listed it on Amazon.

Now we wait…

I waited all day.

Nothing.

I woke up the next morning… thinking it had been a failure, and then saw the notification…

“Your item has been sold.”

What!? Really???

Let’s go!!!

I was ecstatic.

Only to find out moments later… I messed up. I didn’t account for the sales tax.

I ended up losing 88 cents in the deal.

My very first sale was a bust.

So… riding high on the adrenaline that came from the first sale, I tried again.

I scoured the internet and ended up clicking on these waterproof camping bags from Alibaba, the Chinese version of Amazon.

I ordered three of them.

I needed to test my product before being willing to list it to my customers on Amazon.

I thought I was the real deal.

When they arrived in the mail weeks later, they had Chinese lettering on the packaging, and inside were my waterproof camping bags.

I ended up testing them out and, honestly, they were garbage.

I wasn’t going to list them and I wasn’t going to make any real money doing it. Less than a dollar per sale if they even sold in the first place.

Not to mention the poor quality and the negative reviews that might come from the first few sales.

As my schooling began to ramp up, I decided to put drop shipping behind me and chalk it up as my very first failure.

It almost felt good. Really good.

Up until that point, I had only been reading books and watching YouTube videos.

It was my first time taking real action.

I was proud of myself for stepping into the arena and playing the game.

And I learned something…

Everyone fails. You can’t avoid it. It’s part of the process.

The most successful people I know, oddly enough, have failed the most.

And each failure is one step closer to the success you’ve been dreaming of.

So, I’ll leave you with this…

The faster you fail, the faster you’ll reach success.

Too many people sit on the sidelines waiting for some epiphany to happen or for “perfect timing.”

There is no such thing as perfect timing.

You’ll be waiting your whole life.

Whatever your next goal is… set the deadline much sooner.

You’ll end up achieving your 5-year goals in just 1 year.

If you made it this far, thank you.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great weekend,
Eric

Eric Higgs
Founder of Summit Group | Newsletter & Email Marketing Agency

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