Kuala Lumpur: my start in internet marketing

Travel is great. But the question of money does not go away. You want to keep going, and that means understanding where the money will come from. Learning, looking for new opportunities, trying things you do not understand yet.

For me, that new direction was online business. Sales funnels, marketing, information products of your own. I was only beginning to get into it. It all looked new and a little futuristic: how does a business you can build through the internet actually work?

In autumn 2013, we came to Kuala Lumpur twice to learn about it. September was Peng Joon’s Internet Income Intensive. In October, we returned for Robert Allen’s seminar. Two visits, but for me, one story about getting started.

Peng Joon and the first funnels

The first seminar was connected with our time living and travelling in Bali. Peng Joon talked about selling: how to explain your product, build your marketing and how sales funnels work.

These were the basics for me. I was still figuring out how it all fitted together, and here I could meet people already doing it. Listen to how they thought, how they presented their ideas and what they offered other people.

There was plenty of practical work at Internet Income Intensive. People sat with their laptops, worked and discussed their projects. On 16 September, I had a photograph taken with Peng Joon beside the seminar banner.

After the training, I also wrote to him. I introduced myself, reminded him I had attended the event, suggested discussing cooperation and asked about support and meeting another participant from Ukraine. I was trying to carry those connections beyond the seminar room myself.

From China to Robert Allen

In October, we flew in from China. We were rushing to make it to the seminar. Travelling was all very well, but we also needed to understand how to maintain our financial capacity.

On 10 October, we were back in Kuala Lumpur. That evening, I had my photograph taken with the illuminated Petronas Towers behind me. You can probably see those towers from every corner of the city. :)

Allen interested me for the financial side too: investments, different sources of income, how not to depend on just one thing. At the seminar, we also talked a lot about introducing ourselves, positioning our businesses and meeting people.

What I liked about him was that he seemed like a simple, ordinary person. You listen and realise you have already learned something, with plenty more still ahead.

Those first days went something like this: hotel, seminar, hotel. Then another seminar, meeting people, conversations, hotel. Everything in English. We were beginning to understand some of it. Not everything, honestly. But we were trying.

A book about financial freedom at 25

We did more than listen during the sessions. Everyone came up with ideas for businesses, future books and their own positioning. We put together vision boards, drew our funnels and learned to explain what we wanted to offer.

On my flipchart, I wrote the title: “Retire Rich, Healthy and Happy at 25”. Underneath: “Your easy way from nothing to financial freedom”.

Retiring rich, healthy and happy at 25. An easy way from nothing to financial freedom. That was the book idea I was already presenting.

I already had some capital, though not a huge amount. To me, it seemed like something close to being able to step away from work. In reality, it was not yet enough for complete financial freedom. But that was how I saw it. So I was thinking about financial freedom, how to achieve it and what I could tell others about it.

There I am beside the sheet, Andrew written on my name badge, my future book next to me, still just marker on paper. There is already a call to buy it too. :)

Listening to the other participants was especially interesting. Very different people had gathered in one room, each sharing their own thing: here is my idea, here is my audience, here is how I present myself. You look around: these people do it one way, those people another, and I am trying this. You can exchange thoughts and see how your ideas might work together.

There was also a competition for the best sales page. Who could present their offer better, who could build the better page. That was fun too: putting into practice what was being discussed on stage.

Kuala Lumpur in the evening

After the seminars, we walked around the city. We went to my favourite Jalan Alor, the street full of food, tables and evening activity.

By day, the city was very green. On 16 October, we walked through the gardens. Orchids, hibiscuses, paths among the plants. And suddenly a monitor lizard ran across the road.

You are just walking along, and there it is, a monitor lizard! That really surprised me. Naturally, I took some photographs.

I also had my photograph taken beside a stone structure that looked like a little Stonehenge. Not the real English Stonehenge, of course, but an interesting setting for a photograph.

A little space

That same day, we visited Malaysia’s National Planetarium, Planetarium Negara. It stands in the green Tasik Perdana area. It was officially inaugurated on 7 February 1994 to introduce people to astronomy and space science.

Here, you can look at space hardware up close. I had my photograph taken beside one exhibit: a Viking engine for the Ariane 4 rocket. Nearby was a spacesuit cutout where you could put your face through a hole. My head, with everything else ready for space. :)

The spacesuit in the display case impressed me most. I understood it to be a real cosmonaut’s suit that had been to space. You look at something like that very differently from an ordinary museum model.

And I could see myself reflected in its helmet. I moved closer, photographed my reflection and held up two fingers. A kind of space self-portrait.

Monkeys, SUKA and taxi rules

In the green part of the city, we came across a sign warning about monkeys. After the monitor lizard running across the road, it seemed quite a reasonable warning.

That evening, we spotted a sign reading “SUKA Restaurant Bar”. To our ears, that name is very funny. It was hard not to take a photograph. :)

Later, in a taxi, I studied the little prohibition symbols. No smoking, no durian, no kissing. What a combination! Especially durian alongside kissing. I photographed that too.

These two visits fitted in plenty: seminars, new connections, the city at night, monitor lizards and space. But the main thing I took away from the training was very simple: wow, now I understand a little better how this works. How you can run an online business, present your ideas and build marketing around them.

I felt I had really improved my understanding. And that was great.