Ryan Reger - Streams of Income: Living the Multiple Income Streams Dream

RYAN REGER

NEW YORK

LONDONNASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

Streams of Income

Living the Multiple Income Streams Dream

2019 Ryan Reger

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC. www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

ISBN 9781642792966 paperback

ISBN 9781642792973 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911625

Cover and Interior Design by:

Chris Treccani

www.3dogcreative.net

Morgan James is a proud partner of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg. Partners in building since 2006.

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Any monetary claims or examples in these materials are historical and do not indicate guarantees of future gains. Your level of success is dependent upon your unique situation, your devotion to your business, your skills, and your finances. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, or other damages. As with any business seek the advice of a competent legal, tax, and accounting or other professional. The author and publisher does not warrant the performance, effectiveness, or applicability of any websites in this book. All websites are for informational purposes only; they are not warranted for content, accuracy, or any other implied or explicit purpose.

For free companion videos and additional resources visit www.ryanreger.com/videos.

My wife, Melane, for the encouragement and support to go after my dreams.

You, the reader, for you are why I wrote this book. You too can live your dreams.

W hile this is not a biography about me, I do want to briefly share the story of the last few years of my life and how I got to where I am today.

Even though I know you want to hear about every detail of my life (kidding!), Ill start in 2004 when I read my first internet business book, Silent Sales Machine , by my now friend and mentor Jim Cockrum. At the time, I was living in Indiana and working for a congressman. I loved my job, but I knew I wanted to run my own business someday. I would always come up with business ideas but never really had the capital or the knowledge to implement them.

Fast forward to 2008 and I found myself without a job after the campaign I was managing was unsuccessful.

The only two things I knew at that time were:

1. I was moving to Texas
2. I was getting married

I had no idea what the next step in my career was.

I reached out to a couple of the local congressional offices and put my resume out on some of the online job sites, but nothing really excited me like the prospect of running my own business.

Back in 2005, my wife and mother-in-law started a small furniture business. They had access to some wholesale sources and started putting ads on craigslist for furniture. It was a nice little part-time income for them, but they really didnt have the time to make it a full-time enterprise. I didnt really know anything about furniture, but at the time it seemed like the easiest place to start since my wife and mother-in-law already had the contacts. It was my low-hanging fruit.

I was excited to get going, but my wife didnt believe that it could really be full-time income for us. She told me I needed to get a job and I agreed to continue looking while attempting to make the furniture business work.

So, I continued to submit my resume to online job sites, but my heartand the majority of my timewent into building the furniture business. Instead of the one or two, here and there approach to posting craigslist ads, I ramped it up by posting several a day. The calls started coming in, and I continued posting.

It was slow at first, but we ended 2008 with $6,154 in sales.

In 2009, our momentum continued and by the grace of God we ended the year with a little over $250,000 in sales. And that was all through local Craigslist ads.

In those days, my wife and I literally did every part of the business ourselves. Her job was to post the ads and mine was all the heavy lifting: picking up the furniture at our suppliers warehouse and delivering it to our customers.

Now I cant even imagine driving all over the place doing deliveries, but the Lord gave me the grace to do it and I even enjoyed it.

Business was good until about May of 2012 when we noticed that our Craigslist ads were no longer working. In most of the areas we posted, the ads were taken down almost as soon as we put them up.

This picture was taken in December 2011 at our old house. Our garage was full of furniture that was either to be delivered or picked up.

We needed to do something different now that what we had always done was no longer producing results. The Lord knew what needed to happen and He already had the answer prepared in advance for us.

Jim Cockrum had recently written his book called Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off and had decided to auction off a signed copy of that book with all of the proceeds going to Hope Village, a ministry in Detroit, Michigan.

Because I was subscribed to Jims newsletter, I was aware of the auction, but it wasnt until the final day of the auction that I knew I had to take action. I woke up that morning and saw an email that Jim had sent to subscribers announcing that it was the final day to place a bid.

I just knew that I had to win so I asked my wife if we could place a bid. She asked for how much and I told her. She was a little shocked but told me if thats what I thought we should do then do it.

I won. And the rest is history.

I say the rest is history because, since then, I have been fortunate enough to build a relationship with Jim Cockrum that has transformed my business. One of the added benefits of the auction was a 30-minute phone call with Jim. Since Jim lives about an hour from my parents house in Indiana, I asked him if I could meet him for lunch one day in lieu of the phone call. He graciously agreed.

So, Melane and I planned a trip to Indiana to see my parents and to meet Jim. That was in September 2012.

This picture was taken at our lunch with Jim Cockrum in Indianapolis. This was the first time we met him.

That lunch changed our lives.

Jim gave us a lot of great ideas and tips, but the one we took action on right away was getting our furniture listed on Amazon. He also told us about Amazons fulfillment program and encouraged us to find smaller items we could sell that way.