I’ve Written About Life After Advertising Before.

I am going to accelerate my discussion about the idea that there can be a wonderful life after advertising. I will cover lots of options over the next few months because I am seeing people leave the communications marketing industry for a bunch of reasons. Many people have planned to leave, many have had it foisted on them due to the pandemic, some are leaving advertising companies to go freelance and some are simply selling their agencies. Oh, yeah, some just need some NEW!

Today I (well my artificial assistant Sara) is offering some food for thought. Here are five resources that you can use to get your ball rolling as you exit the agency world.

Head over to How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend to read how Tim Ferris and Noah Kagan think that you can start a million-dollar business. LOL, yes this weekend.

From Noah: “For some reason, people love to make excuses about why they haven’t created their dream business or even gotten started.

This is the “wantrepreneur” epidemic, where people prevent themselves from ever actually doing the side-project they always talk about over beers.

The truth of the matter is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time building the foundation for a successful business. In most cases, it shouldn’t take you more than a couple days.

Think I’m joking?

We made the original product for Gambit in a weekend.

“WTF?!” Yes, a weekend.

In just 48 hours, some friends and I created a simple product that grew to a $1,000,000+ business within a year.”

Want to run a “passive income” business? No this does not really mean just sitting back and watching the moolah roll in. This does require work. But, it may be less workaholic than writing 87 Instagram posts per week. Pat Flynn is the passive income master who can get you started and rocking. Go to his Smart Passive Income blog for years of how to. he also writes extensively about the tools that you might use – like how to build and run a podcast.

I love this one. Great daydreaming or just do it. I was just turned on to this list by a dude that lives in Ho Chi Minh City and runs a global online marketing company. Want a comprehensive list of online businesses that you can buy? The well-named Empire Flippers has that list. I’m going to help you cut to the chase. Here is an interview that Passive Income’s Pat Flynn did with Empire Flippers’ CEO.

Don’t want to start a new business? Maybe you’d rather get out on the road? Head out to Overland to hear about building a long-distance van life – anyone can do this. Sure beats being on your mom’s kitchen table Zoom calls. And, if you want to see some real-life people that are making a living traveling in their van, check out Kara and Nate’s We Bought A Van on YouTube (they will show you a great lifestyle pivot). Back to your new van…  Here is the Overland site.

OK, one more. Last week I interviewed Michaela Alexis about her move from advertising agency life to becoming a leader in LinkedIn training. Head over here… How Michaela Alexis Rocks LinkedIn Learning. 

Upcoming Advertising Stories episodes will cover African-American advertising and agency ownership (an the poor level of diversity in the industry); eCommerce conversion rate optimization and how to go from ad person to client-side. All of these topics will be interviews with experts.

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A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.