How Losing My Job Turned into One of the Best Things That Could Have Happened
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Note: I wrote this back in early January, but for some reason, it, like many other posts, was lost in my drafts pile.
Back in October, about a week before leaving on a 20 day vacation to Japan and Australia, my wife and I both lost our jobs.
At the time, we were working at a five person start up that went belly up due to a lack of customers. It was pretty disappointing to lose our main source of income, but the writing was on the wall for a long time, so I can't say we were really "shocked."
As you'd probably expect, it was extremely unsettling to be heading out of the country on a long vacation when we didn't have a steady source of income coming in. However, fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), the flights, tours, and hotels were already paid for, so our only real expenses were food - which meant we weren't going to cancel our trip.
Now for some, losing a job could be absolutely devastating. For us, it wasn't. We had a good amount of money in savings and I was growing a few side businesses already, so our income wasn't completely gone - just a sizable portion of it.
I'm not saying it didn't suck, but it definitely wasn't the end of the world.
Frankly, neither of us loved our jobs anyway, they were simply a source of income. The only real reason we stuck around for as long as we did, was because it was a family business and we wanted to see it grow - which it sadly did not.
So, how did this turn into one of the best things that could've happened, you ask? Read on...
How We Make an Income Now
It may come as no big surprise that I sell on Amazon. After all, I've talked about reselling A LOT. Now, I'm here to prove that it actually works as a full time gig!
I originally started selling on Amazon in 2014 shortly after starting this blog and I only really got into it for the points. I didn't care if I was making a profit, I just wanted to earn as many points as possible. In fact, I lost money on a few occasions and I was totally fine with that, because the points I earned were good enough!
After awhile, I started realizing that the risk of returns and the time suck involved was too high to just resell for the points. I needed more...
Then, I stumbled on the wild world of Facebook. This is where you want to be if you're a reseller. There are hundreds of Facebook groups dedicated to all different types of reselling where you can learn everything you could possibly want. Travel Hacking may be on Twitter, but for reselling, you definitely want to be on Facebook.
Anyway, after absorbing hours of Facebook comments and posts, I realized that there is SO much more to FBA than I originally thought. So, I dedicated 2016 to really upping my FBA game - which I definitely did.
Now the start of the year wasn't fantastic, and I hit a bit of a hiccup in July when the prep company I was using closed, but the rest of the year was a fantastic learning experience that helped me grow my reselling business drastically.
In fact, my business grew so much that during December I did over 100k in sales for the first time ever. I realize it was during Q4, which is a very crazy time to be a seller, but it was still a goal many hope to reach - myself included.
I'm far from a "big time seller," but I do alright and my business is continually growing now that I don't have a day job. The moral of the story in my eyes is this: diversify your income.
If I hadn't already started growing my Amazon business prior to losing my job, I would probably be much worse off and I definitely wouldn't have been able to start my own business immediately.
So, am I happy where I'm at now? Absolutely! But, I can always do better, which is why this year I plan to drastically increase my inventory and possibly even start Private Labeling my own product. We'll see how 2017 goes!
How You Can Start Selling on Amazon
So, how do you repeat my success with FBA? Simple: check out my post on How to Sell on Amazon. It's completely free and it's chock full of information teaching you how to become a successful Amazon seller!
You can also check back regularly, because I have quite a few posts planned in regards to Amazon FBA. 🙂
