My Story: Figuring Out My Passion.
My name is Aaron Jerez and this is my blog.
I started this blog as what I thought would be a side project in 2023 until I realized what it could do for me. Though this is still very early on in my journey, I have been in the online business and affiliate space since about 2019.
Currently, my main source of income online is my online marketing business where I generate a multitude of businesses from medicare leads to life insurance. Also, my two e-commerce businesses where I am a retailer selling home-related products, and another store where I sell more fitness products.
It has been a long journey of about 4 years to get to where I am today. I can fully live off of the income I make online, the best part is I can wake up and choose what I want to do every day.
Here’s how the journey began:
I always had an interest in financial freedom, science, and technology.
As a child, I would write about how I saved all of my Christmas money and money from other celebrations I received as gifts. I felt free knowing that if I wanted to buy a new video game, piece of candy, or toy I could.
This ability to save money I had since I was young, manifested itself into a goal of making a ton of money when I was older so that I never had to worry about not having enough money for what I wanted.
The only way I thought this was possible was by becoming a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, as this is what I saw in the neighborhood I lived in, and what I learned from my peers.
The College Years – 2014
Seeing that I had a natural interest in science, and doctors were known to make “a lot of money” I decided I wanted to become a doctor.
I started my Pre-Med curriculum in 2014, where I had a major in biology.
Throughout the many months in college, I loved to party on the weekend. I loved college, yea there was a bunch of stress leading up to big exams, but the parties and living with other people on my same path in college was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
My older brother actually went to the same university as me, Syracuse University. With him, I started going to the gym, first only a few times a week.
Then after a few months, I was addicted. During my first year in college, I weighed only 125 pounds at 6 feet tall. By sophomore year, I had put on 40 pounds, thanks to the unlimited food in the dining halls.
Around my third year of college, I took some highly specialized classes like Human Anatomy and Physics. It was some of the most difficult classes I have ever taken. I started to second guess if this highly stressful career path would be right for me.
After a couple weeks of thought, I decided that I didn’t want to pursue a career in medicine. I quickly transitioned my major to Exercise Science. I decided I would go down the path of a personal trainer because I knew as an Equinox trainer I could at least make a figure salary if I worked hard.
I graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science. I became a trainer at equinox, and my journey in the real world was about to start.
Welcome to the real world – 2018
Working at equinox was great, it was a super supportive environment where everyone was on the same page. The gym was luxurious and beautiful, I worked in the Brookfield place equinox, right across the street from the Freedom tower.
After about 3 months I realized that I was an introvert and didn’t enjoy training people as much as I thought I would. I would sell packages to my clients, and would only get paid about a fourth of what each session actually cost. Plus, I was wasting so much time just waiting around at the gym for my next training session.
As I was preparing to quit, I started watching a course about starting a marketing agency. I had some experience with dropshipping back in high school. So, this really intrigued me.
Not only could I make millions of dollars, but I could also do it behind the safety of my computer and not be tied to a clock like I was as a personal trainer.
I ended up helping a few physical therapy and chiropractor clinics get some leads. But ended up not following through with the marketing agency, because I knew it would require a bunch of cold calling since I was limited on the income I had to invest to get clients.
Though I didn’t follow through with the agency, I had a newfound skill… Facebook Marketing.
I’m My Own Boss
With a new awareness that I could actually make money online… I started to do a ton of research on what I could do online with my new Facebook marketing knowledge.
I had no idea what that would be so I began searching for many different business models. Along the way, I still needed to eat… So, I began freelance work getting paid to mount TVs, Art, and assemble furniture on TaskRabbit.
I would get paid anywhere from $40 – $80 per hour to mount art, and $40 per hour to assemble furniture. I was at this point making more money than I was working at Equinox.
I also had two private personal training clients that I would travel to twice a week which paid me $110 per hour.
The money was good, and I had no real “boss” telling me what to do, but I was still tied to time and location to make a living.
The Awakening – 2020
The marketing skills I learned led me to start my affiliate marketing journey. After a few weeks of using my income and savings to test different offers and products on advertising campaigns, I started making $200 per day profit… for over 2 weeks I was making more than I ever have before with less physical effort. I was getting paid to send leads to nursing schools.
Unfortunately, soon after a couple weeks of winning on my ad campaigns, Facebook decided to fully disable my business account. I was no longer able to keep running the campaigns.
Unfortunately, soon after a couple weeks of winning on my ad campaigns, Facebook decided to fully disable my business account. I was no longer able to keep running the campaigns.
Flip The Switch – 2021
After weeks of looking for a business model that could be 100% online, and watching a ton of videos… I stumbled upon what’s called “high ticket drop shipping”.
Synonymous with Online retailing, I learned I could become an authorized dealer for United States-based businesses that sold their products and shipped from the US.
I bought a course on how to do this business model, and haven’t turned back since! During my first year in business, I generated close to $450,000 in revenue.
From that $446k revenue, I made around $39k. The profit I made was about 9%.
Where I Am Today
I now own two online retailing businesses where I sell top-quality US-based products. I have learned a ton about the back-end systems of some of our largest US freight companies, distributors, and wholesalers.
One huge lesson I learned along the way is the power of SEO and blog posts. The entire first year in business I was strictly running Google Ads. That was one of the largest expenses I had along with the cost of goods.
I learned I could create blog posts that rank and get thousands of views on my products, basically for free. Increasing my store’s ROI drastically.
That brings me to my current situation, I have seen success with ranking product review articles, product comparisons, and more on Google. After writing the pillar of articles that were relevant to the products I sell, I realized I was limited by the amount of product-related content I could write based on what products I have access to sell.
Here we are now! This year I decided I would go full throttle on the middle-man affiliate model. Writing high quality articles based on market research.
My goal is to make this blog site a learning opportunity for all my readers on how to create additional income based on strictly providing value. An income that can, with time, surpass the income from their current job. While being completely hands off from the product fulfillment process which can be a huge bottleneck in the e-commerce industry.
Thank You For Being Here
If you’ve made it this far, I’m grateful for the time you spent reading and place high importance on any connections formed through this blog.
As a blogging mentor and friend, I’m here for you. I make an effort to reply to every message I receive and I’m eager to learn about your experiences, both the good and the challenging.
My goal is to create a supportive environment for new bloggers to come together, offer encouragement and find ways to be more efficient. As fellow bloggers, it’s crucial that we join forces, lift each other up and strive for success together.
Thanks for stopping by. Wishing you peace, freedom, and joy in your life journey.