Episode #125 – Corey Ferreira on How To Go From Freelancer To Successful Info Marketer

John McIntyre: It’s John McIntyre here; I am the auto responder guy. I am

here with Corey Ferreira. Now, we heard you say anything about accurate we got there for our that

they are on our got the rarer than initially you know it’s very similar things on this anyway actually

recently that you met like five minutes ago this is where attending a little while back just saying that

these just started recently working at Shopify during the content marketing has been amazing stuff

with infra Part since the most interesting part of the sonic a little bit emotional majority forecast of

you know is this idea he was a freelance I think written and interpreted really took off I think that’s a

really cool I don’t neglect or an effort a lot of friends want to do the job the studied for letting the

copywriting something else and just like another job in the end of the day concert you know he said

one must attend both and they want to go out how to make some sweet product money so they could

be an interesting episode. Corey, how are you doing man?

Corey: Good man, how are you?

John McIntyre: Fantastic! Thanks for coming on the show.

Corey: Thank you so much.

John McIntyre: So, before we get into just kind of go for freelancing info

publisher; tell the listener a little bit more about who you are you know what you do bit about your

story.

Corey: Sure, I mean, you have already mentioned that I am a content

marketer of shopify, but that only happened recently. Just before that I was fully self-employed for

many years. I was a freelance web designer essentially. By the way I was consulting to may be more

off the ground helping them with you know SEO and social media … so it’s like the package service

and I did that for quite a while and I remember about three years ago or so there was a … allow that

point and I was like $5 business marketplace you can buy services. I went there fire as a way to

extend my freelancing business so that find new client essentially and so what I did was you know I

start off fire as really basic services like transferring your website from your old host to your new host

and I was on fire for about a year until eventually about a year and a half after all the top-rated seller

on fire. So, I started making the outrageous money on fire and I know it sounds like much but let me

consider big extra and multiple that stuff like that. You can make a lot of money on fire actually so

that was actually.

John McIntyre: How much?

Corey: At one point I reached 4,000 bucks in a month and so that was on top

of my freelancing business. Now if I service high to you there are people making like twice that much

as much that I offer with the crazy opportunities out there and if that sounds low it actually pretty

decent for Fiverr I think for a top-rated seller and at this point to you know I thought the new market

looked at like the Click Bank Marketplace. I looked around internet and there wasn’t a lot of

information at the time talking about Fiverr, like how to make money on Fiverr essentially or how to

what kind of gig this time and how to sell them and how to optimize your profile you know keep you a

lot of trial and error, lot of experimentation looking at what other people are doing about bugs doing

and apply it to my own private platform and my Fiverr gigs, but I started writing about it, because at

this time I was reading a book called the laptop millionaire and by … one of the message he

mentioned his creative information already in eBook. So, I thought I’d try it you know a long time ago

I would … on eBay and selling information products, but I never really focusing on it and just trying to

sell it. So, I wrote this book called Fiverr success and I wrote all my experience than I thought I would

say credit for a lot of people teaching it because most people now they teach on Fiverr is in my

opinion the things are like kind of account with first doing or talking about and we can go for the

process of how I launch this book. I mean I launched the book and it did really well and it just been

slow bowling since, so because I don’t know where I Click bank right to the ground hearing on stuff so

more it sell the market will find it to promote it and its been doing really well then send it to expand

other books. It’s expanded into a course. It’s kind of my personal brand and Fiverr diary which are

really only want to be. I mean much for passion and about online business, but certainly something

has really helped and actually helped me to drive here.

John McIntyre: Okay and just maybe quickly I am curious about then, what

inspired you to go to you know Shopify? You know you’ve got this. You are a freelancer. You know you

are doing your privacy don’t really have to have a talk with him when you’re living why did you had

that job?

Corey: That’s funny because I didn’t actually find them they found me,

because my blog so what ended up happening was after fiverr success I started an online business blog

and on this blog I talked about you know like online marketing and stuff like that and I don’t consider

as a guru or anything like that. It’s actually just my humble advice from my own experience and funny

enough shopify noticed me, they saw this blog right, which has an audience, thanks to the Fiverr book

and they offered me a position as a content marketing. I say no immediately, but I saw as an

opportunity to elevate myself to really put me a whole other level, because I really feel it water you

know and those who don’t know that other level in terms of elevating my personal brand, extending

my reach, getting … to find me so I help in the future is still young and I mean shopify is to work

with. I mean they really … treat their employees everything. So, it was just a little no brain or after I

really thought about it and they still give me to complete freedom to do my own thing which is

beautiful, which most employers don’t do. I mean it is still an adjustment for me; I am not going to

lie. I mean I am not used to work at night at Fiverr, looking for someone but I’d still manage and it’s

just been an excellent experience. I really learnt so much more I say. It was definitely worthy.

John McIntyre: Awesome man, Okay, that interesting. So, the reason… I

mean so many are going in the direction from job to travel and it’s actually funny lately I’ve met a few

people going the other way around. They’re trying to go to travelling, but more like a lot of freedom

to get out of job. Even if they you know at very flexible job like on the Shopify more they are

interested to find out why people, you must go in these different directions. You don’t think so I got a

quick job and then there are people who are actually going to get job. Why not they more interested

to get a job?

Corey: They are … talented.

John McIntyre: Yeah and that’s totally cool.

Corey: Yeah, I mean, like I live that lifestyle or you know I live to work from

home and do whatever I wanted, but I realize I am still young and I don’t know everything. I think it’s

so much opportunity for me to grow as a online business person and as a person in general. I mean

this is so much more I could do in terms of developing my brand that I feel like something a little

help me do that just didn’t help grow a company. It’s very flattering they reached out to me. It was

very hard for me to say no, you know, I mean if it is truly for the money I’ll be said just said no, but it

wasn’t. I want to do more with my skill set and my… And not so learn more and become much more of

all. I have worked on myself abundance stuff like that and I feel like I told you that hear.

John McIntyre: Yeah, I freely on that man. I actually just came back from the

recording about six weeks ago now and the people that were there are … other people who’d been

doing all sorts of stuff that a lot lately made stuff and it really inspired me to the point like I actually

setting on to look back, but going to San Francisco to explore. I get involved in something a lot bigger

than just a building a little bit online marketing or travelling around and that’s fun. I loved it. I

started, I have, but sometimes there is like … and you feel like a little piece inside of you. You don’t

want to go into something bigger and the funny thing about this actually is about two weeks ago I

spoke to someone who’s name is Gary. He is on his way out of Silicon Valley and out of San Francisco

and he’s been building and doing accelerator and you want to get out for a while, bit of a lifestyle

needs to do some traveling to freedom and then go back to Silicon Valley later. So, everyone is just

going to all these different directions.

Corey: Yeah, yeah it’s actually because like what you sold on the internet is

like oh you know palm tree is e working on a beach and that kind of stuff. You think about it you

really want to do a lot with the skills you have and the knowledge you have. You want to do more

than just that. So, that’s kind of where I was at that point when I thought I found.

John McIntyre: Nice, well let’s talk about go back to more you know go away back in

your story to when you’re more of a freelancer and then how that transition worked for you?

Corey: Yeah sure, so you know I was freelancing for quite a while and of

course I have always heard about things like passive income and you know creating information

products and something I kind of dabbled with like I mentioned earlier on eBay. I kind of created some

eBooks and sold on eBay, but I didn’t do very well you know. That’s when I was very, very young and I

didn’t know what I was doing. But then a few years ago I decided you know what I want to create

information product and you know timing was perfect, because I have seen some success on Fiverr so I

thought you know there’s nothing here I can teach. So, I started writing about it you know and … this

information product looking at the competitors as well, what they’re teaching and I can say honestly it

wasn’t very good you know there was not any valuables, like very useful actionable information out

there, so I put together this books and as I wrote it actually, I started building my audience. So,

when … people doing this multiple make is they create at first and then they try and find the

audience right and that’s very deflating because you’re not going to sell the book, like … probably

give up on it. So, what I do is that I actually built my audience while I was writing this book helped,

not only validate the idea, but how also had a audience belongs to once I finish writing the book. So

what I actually did was I created a Twitter account just for the book and I want to search dot

twitter.com and I look people talking about Fiverr and I would engage with them. Now, I pitch them

all and say hey I’m writing a book about Fiverr. I would engage them and help them so questionable

Fiverr you know you talk about Fiverr in general I would inject myself in the conversation and make

myself and make my presence aware so what they were doing it in my bio and I would have a landing

page saying you know I’m writing a book about Fiverr is coming soon, join the list if you’re here in line

when it launches essentially and if I had to coming soon catch up while I build this audience as I was

writing the book and it also gave me feedback as well what I should be writing about based on the

interaction with people on Twitter.

John McIntyre: That’s pretty cool a really cool story because it shows that you

don’t have to spend money to build an audience.

Corey: Right!

John McIntyre: And this is right Corey I get on twitter to go and engage with

I’m just proud I would be really deputy you can get it done story and was like well did you know do

you really know about that very well.

Corey: Yeah but I’m not going to lie along a lot of time and it put a lot of

effort that would spending 12 hours a day doing that on Twitter. Like you said Gary is one of my ideal

actually that’s where I got the idea from as I was writing a book and actually paid off tremendously

now when I did like the book, I only made $400 the first day, at the same time I made $400 on first

day more than people who make may be zero dollars when they launched. I don’t remember the title

it’s not to be on it because I forgot like lifted so huge now compared to what I want at that time but it

definitely helped with the momentum in terms of selling the e-books and eventually run out now.

John McIntyre: And so, tell me about how you’re engaging? So, you get a text

that’s a 50 for example irrelevant to elect a struggling with something. What sort of stuff would you

say?

Corey: Like if you were to do that now its pinnacle stepping up their Fiverr

stuff at the time there a lot of people think you know I don’t know it could get the seller check out

my gig and I would look at their gate right now if you like what you see an improved or I don’t feel

like you don’t like we did that and I’m at the time they’d be a call thanks for checking my profile and

seeing what I was doing. Sometimes people just asking question out into the bit about fiverr and I

would respond to in order to work under the carport over a question of why did my gig selling or

respond to them like your day off help you included at least I want the kitchen you know and i was

standing there which I hate to do. So, I actually tried to give them some values and they check out

what I was doing and multiplexer 13 landing page and they would opt in to get notified in writing the

book.

John McIntyre: Okay so you were building an email list in the start?

Corey: Correct!

John McIntyre: And so what happened was that you don’t have to do a lot but

they don’t fall down about five with a click on the link to get outside and look I’m actually not ready

yet if you click this button you can find out what’s coming out.

Corey: Yeah, exactly there let you know when leaving plenty of the way I

described as white people is that a further progress until I rate the detail page first before I even

wrote the book and i actually gave me a night outline of what the book was going to be about an

immediate a lot easier for me to put the progress of perspective to know what all are going to be

solving you need additional going to be my type operation so that would have invited you that I don’t

even know the bullet into trouble at all because I had the momentum going into it to view more from

there.

John McIntyre: It’s cool and okay so what came at the time to launch the book? You

had the book, you had the sales, and you have an email list. How many people were there n the email

list?

Corey: I don’t remember to be honest. It was that the couple hundred people

at least I’m not sure I want to convert I mean I know are under 18 border but that day when I sent

that email oh but i dont have lunch you know I didn’t look at the email I was getting from people like

their help turn and just Walker declined even though I kept from them when they were launching

products and I kind of credit n play around what they were doing and I remember you know I and it

kind of exciting I tried making it even up to that point I would say it all on launching the books on

April 2nd will be ready for it to have all the stuff right and I would generate a lot of buzz around it so

that when I finally sent out email on April 2nd, I told you know if you guys are the first one to buy you

are going to get a good price before I raise it but looked a little bit of a scarcity thing as well really

help me to be able to email.

John McIntyre: Yeah nice okay and so what does that feel going?

Corey: Yeah for sure it is still selling really well. Since it … two more eBooks and also a course that I

created a video course around the book is low and one of the biggest thing I did since actually another

nugget audience you could fill that I i don’t double doing I think it’s just so genius is actually I’m sure

you’ve heard of you didn’t t right now yes so what I did was that you create a free course but didn’t

put up on you do to me and has like 4000 students now and I had actually helped build my little slow

so I did three quarter pounder great basic stopped short of mine I knew I was talking about your

product of a lot of value and at the end of each recorded hey you know I’ll have misled state during

the pre-trial i buy books like high but you cannot going into well along with that and I do on my blog

on a website as well at the end anything that really helped as well by the upper lot built up a bit like

a month later I did speak to me and it helped me tremendously well I know a lot about the beginning

came from that free course.

John McIntyre: Interesting that’s really cool man how does not come together

and then out though it still running. You’re doing a shopify thing are you still freelancing?

Corey: No, now that the beauty it. I don’t have to worry about what you don’t

think I wanted to do that my life that plane I’ve always wanted to be more of you know someone who

has the blog concocted a company like and now that you know the blog my personal blog the money

but Fiverr book in the parking lot of money supply thing going on and don’t have the freelancing

anymore. I’m really thankful actually.

John McIntyre: Nice and then you are doing shopify fulltime thing right?

Corey: Yeah!

John McIntyre: And you work from home or you work from Shopify?

Corey: I work from Shopify. Fortunately I live very close to their office. It’s

just been a really awesome thing.

John McIntyre: Nice man! So now what next?

Corey: Yeah sure, I am building my personal brand so I have a blog called …

and this is basically like my online business blog where I share stuff like how to create eBook, how I

marketed it? All that stuff, so I share basically all on this blog and I relay want to build that up and

you know build an audience and do more from there you know like I would love to do public speaking

and stuff like that and just want to get more evolve in online marketing and online business.

John McIntyre: Very cool man. Alright we are right on time here, so before

we go if people want to check any of this out, where the best place for them to do that?

Corey: Yeah, I love to go to Enbolden.co. That’s my personal blog; just check

it out and also to the Shopify blog about ecommerce at shopify.com/blog and check out more great

content out there as well.

John McIntyre: Awesome! Okay, cool. Thanks for coming on the show man.

Corey: Thank you very much John.