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MY STORY

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MY STORY |

THE REAL REASON I WAS STUCK TRADING

TIME FOR MONEY

(AND HOW I FINALLY TOOK BACK MY TIME)

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I did everything I was suppose to do.

I went to college on a scholarship. I got a stable job, working as a financial analyst at a bank. I even bought a starter home.

But it wasn’t long before I started feeling… stuck.

Stuck in a cubicle, crunching numbers.

Stuck in a car, commuting nearly two hours every day.

Stuck in a career, where the best possible outcome was a promotion (with more responsibility, and less free time).

I felt like the “get a stable job, work hard, and you’ll have a great life” advice I was fed from an early age was one big lie.

I’ve always felt God calling me to be a present, loving father and husband (family is such a HUGE part of who I am)…

So I knew I needed to make a change.

I didn’t want to wake up in 40 years (after clocking 76,800 hours) feeling like I wasted my life — trading time for money.

And that’s when I stumbled upon the wonderful world of digital marketing and online business.

Starting an online business felt impossible.

Over the next year, I tried to launch three separate side hustles as I worked my 9-5... and ALL of them failed.

  • I tried to get a sports podcast off the ground with two of my college buddies — never released a single episode.

  • I tried to build my own app — designed the entire thing and never got out of production.

  • I tried to launch a monthly membership site — it failed miserably.

I was spinning my wheels, but nothing worked.

I wanted the freedom to set my own hours. I wanted the freedom to work from anywhere in the world. I wanted to be able to take my family on a month-long trip without stressing about finances.

But the online business dream began to feel less and less possible… and since I was still working my 9-5, these side-hustles meant even more time away from my family.

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The breakthrough year.

Everything that I ever dreamed of finally became my reality.

I launched a virtual high-end consulting business for personal brands, and it took off like wildfire.

Month one — $2.5k.
Month two — $5.5k.
Month three — $15.5k.

By month six, the business 10xed my monthly salary and I quickly put in my two-week notice at the bank.

I was finally my own boss.

I was doing work that lit me up.

And since it was an online business, I wasn’t location dependent either!

I was living the dream...

Or so I thought.

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My “successful” service-based business started to feel like a new kind of prison.

Yes, I was making good money — I bought a big, beautiful dream home.

Yes, I wasn’t locked in a cubicle — I could travel wherever I wanted to.

But I had even less free time than I did when I was in my 9-5. I traded a 40-hour work week that I could leave at the office for a 60-hour work week that crept into every nook and cranny of my life.

I was caught in the traditional service-based business model:

To make money, I had to sign new clients. Which meant I spent my time posting on social media and filling my calendar with sales calls.

Since I was selling a service, I would sacrifice even more of my time after the sale working with paying clients.

Once again, I felt trapped.

I was fully booked with clients… but I needed to sign more. If I stopped signing clients, I stopped making money. But if I signed more clients, I would eventually burn out.

I knew I had to make another change… and that’s when I took my next big leap of faith.

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I made a radical shift in my business.

I fired all of my clients, launched my first digital product, and built a shiny new evergreen funnel.

My friends and family thought I was insane, because I completely shut down a consulting business that looked “successful” from the outside.

But I knew what I wanted…

I wanted to a build a business that could grow without me investing my time (which has always been my most important resource).

I wanted to replace my time-intensive service with digital products, and build a sales machine that could sell my products FOR me.

So I took the leap…

I created a premium online course.

I wrote a beautiful, persuasive email sequence.

I started running paid ads.

I went all in on growing an online business that would give me the freedom lifestyle that I had always wanted.

…And it paid off!

In 12 months, I hit $400k in completely passive online course sales.

No sales calls. Minimal posting on social media.

Everything was automated — but it wasn’t perfect…

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My business was running on autopilot… but my stress levels were still through the roof.

Don’t get me wrong — my ad campaigns were profitable (if I invested $1 into ads, I’d make $4 in course sales), but I had to wait 2-3 weeks for a new email subscriber to purchase my premium online course.

Every day I would see $500+ leave my bank account, and I’d hope and pray that a $2.5k sale was right around the corner.

No one talks about the dark side of automation.

Automation allows you to make sales without ever speaking to your leads — i.e. passive income.

But when all you hear is crickets and no one is signing up… what then?

You waste hundreds or thousands of dollars in ads, and you have no idea how to fix it because there’s no direct contact with leads.

The truth is, if you don’t know how to set up your systems and automations the right way, you can send leads through your funnels and make NO high-ticket sales.

Luckily, in 2021 I figured out the key to scaling past $30k months:

And just like that, I blew past my $30k month plateau… ON AUTOPILOT.

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Now my online business harnesses the power of four automated systems (you can read more about them here), and I help other entrepreneurs build the same systems inside their own businesses.

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Note From Dillon

I believe your business should work for you and your family… not the other way around.

If you’re an expert (i.e. you can get real, transformative results for your clients) and you’re still trading time for money, then the automated systems I’ve built will work for you.

Freedom is right around the corner!

Rooting for you,

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IT’S YOUR TURN!

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