In the last post in the previous “Getting Started” series of Blogs, I mentioned that I got a pension of just under 85 Pounds a week from the UK Government. However, despite Thailand’s lower cost of living, GBP 85 a week is nowhere near enough for a family of 3 to survive on and, despite accounting being a “Thai only” profession, I needed an additional source or sources of income to survive.
This problem was uppermost in my mind as I flew back to Cairns after my initial 2 week stay back with my wife when we decided that we would give it another go. I had had a good life up to then, working hard yes, but I also played hard and although I should have amassed a sizeable retirement fund, my lifestyle combined with some poor to disastrous investment decisions meant that the cupboard was almost bare.
I knew that there wouldn’t be a lot of money coming my way by way of pensions, although I did expect something from Australia. My Australian accounting client wasn’t getting any younger and I wouldn’t be able to do everything I was doing for him now over the Internet from Bangkok. Ten years max from him was my estimate, but there MUST be someway round this problem I thought to myself as I flew back to Cairns via Brisbane.
This very important question was still running round my head, unanswered, about 2 weeks later, when I was dozing off one evening alone in bed with the TV switched on, although I wasn’t really watching it. An Info-commercial woke me from my slumber, when I realized that a free Internet Marketing seminar was going to be held in a Cairns’ hotel the following week. Internet Marketing, that’s a thought, went through my mind as I waited until a telephone number was given out. I scribbled it down on a piece of paper, before I switched off the TV while the commercial was still running, and fell fast asleep within minutes.
As soon as I arrived at work the next morning, I called the Brisbane number I had scribbled down the night before and booked my free spot at the upcoming seminar. It’s strange that it’s free I thought to myself, not realizing that I was falling into one of the main “traps” of the Internet Marketing world. The following day there was an envelope with a Gold Coast postmark, in my post box. The Gold Coast is a suburb of Brisbane.
The envelope contained a nicely printed invitation to a seminar which was called “How To Make Money While You Sleep”. All the required details were there, time, place, date etc and I was asked to bring something to write on and something to write with, but I was told that I wouldn’t require the use of a computer. That was on a Wednesday and the seminar was to be held the following Tuesday, so I had just under a week to wait. Luckily, as I was paid by the hour, my attendance at work was very flexible, as long as I was able to meet certain deadlines, and so taking the following Tuesday off would pose no problems at all. So everything was set.
The idea of taking up Internet Marketing appealed more and more to me as the week progressed and over the following weekend. Surely making money on the Internet can’t be that difficult for somebody with my computer experience, I thought to myself. I did however remind myself that my experience was rooted away back in the days of DOS, and my experience of the Internet didn’t extend much further than the use of emails to communicate rather than old fashioned letters.
The seminar was to be presented by a guy called Brett McFall. I just HAVE to make this work, my whole future depends on it, as does Riu’s and Ning’s I reminded myself as I supped on my last beer in the pub on the Monday evening before the seminar on the Tuesday. I just hope that this guy McFall knows what he’s talking about and isn’t just a fly-by-night con artist.