How Elijah Left Finance for Email Marketing — And Built His Dream Career

Introduction

I worked as a professional in the finance industry, helping clients to raise money for their businesses and persuading investors to invest in those businesses.

It was the typical 9-5 (well 8-5), required a lot of proposal preparation and presentation, analysing the financials of these companies to see if they can pay investors back, Macro-economic research, meetings etc.

Transition:

It was a good job if I’m being honest but it just wasn’t something I was very passionate about. 

Also, I realised that staying in this career path would not give me the kind of life I truly wanted.

My Job in finance paid decently well but it did not give me the time or location freedom that I truly desired.

Moreso, I couldn’t see the path to entrepreneurship in a few years in Finance. 

I figured that it would take a longer time and a lot of money to venture into entrepreneurship in Finance and it would just require a lot less of both to have a significant breakthrough in Digital Space.

And so my search began.

I was looking for something I could do online that could help me make a decent amount of money, to live the life I want.

I had initially started Affiliate Marketing but I did not think I had the money to stick with it long enough to pay off.

Affiliate Marketing requires money to run ads (among other things) and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing all money in the event that my ads didn’t convert.

It would have been too painful a loss to bear.

So I had to look for another route:

• Something I could do Online;
• Didn’t require to run ads to start making money;
• Preferably a service I could sell;
• And also something that paid in USD! (This was very important due to the crazy inflation going on in the country at that time)

While I was learning Affiliate Marketing, I really liked the part where I wrote Emails,

Also the part where I wrote my ads (copywriting)

I even later got training JUST to learn how to write copy.

Then, I thought that Email Marketing was just some part of a business that makes money or some service(writing emails) you could sell to foreigners to make money.

I did not know that it was a whole Career Path!

That was until I came across KissMarketers,

They helped me see that the skillset of Email Marketing is much bigger than I thought it was.

It’s a whole career path just like I had in Finance and it could pay me well enough to live life on my terms even while working for international companies.

And the Path to Entrepreneurship in a few years was as clear as day.

Considering all these factors, I literally jumped at the opportunity of joining the bootcamp.

Although the fee to signup was quite hefty, I figured that “Without risk, there is no reward”.

And that’s how I enrolled.

Also the payment plan made it easier.

Bootcamp Experience:

I found the boot camp via X(formerly twitter), I saw some of Mr. Johnson Emmanuel posts and they were making a lot of sense.

Also coupled with the fact that a mentor I follow reposted Mr. Emmanuel's post, it was easier for me to trust him.

One day, Mr. Emmanuel made a post referencing the bootcamp and that’s how I found it. 

The rest they say is history.

The two major challenges I faced when signing up were the time constraint and also the financial constraint.

Time limitation because I had no idea how much work we would be doing in the bootcamp and I didn’t quite know if I would be able to meet up with the tasks because of my already busy schedule.

Financial constraint because I had never paid that much for training in my whole life. 

It was a little scary for me because “what if they were not legit?” , “what if I don’t get the desired result at the end of the day?”.

Honestly, if there was no payment plan, I probably would not have followed through with signing up because WHAT!?

Anyway, I’m glad I still went ahead with itl.

That experience gave me a little insight into how my parents felt when they paid for my school fees. (Shout-out to my parents! Lol!)

Because I enrolled in this Program, I have learned new things like:

- Email Segmentation.

- Email Deliverability

- Customer Journey Mapping

- Sender Reputation

- List Cleaning

- Email Performance Metrics to track (Open Rates, CTR, conversion rate) etc.

And though it hasn’t been a particularly easy journey, 

I have come to realise that I have what it takes to make it all the way:

FOCUS. DETERMINATION AND A NEVER ENDING DESIRE TO IMPROVE.

Current Outlook 

One of the things I’m grateful for about the bootcamp is how it has opened my mind to what's possible with this skillset.

I had certain financial goals which I considered big before joining the bootcamp.

And now that I’m here, I’m starting to realise that those goals aren’t really that big.

And even though I’m yet to hit those goals, I can see much further than where I used to see before I enrolled.

Upon graduation, I look forward to having the skills to take on and excel on any entry level email marketing roles I land.

And from then on out, I look forward to charting my path to becoming an entrepreneur in the digital space.

One step at a time.

If this journey has taught me anything, it’s that the life you truly want isn’t waiting at the end of a familiar road. It’s found on the path you’re bold enough to create.