My Entrance into Entrepreneurship
A Review of My Experience with ENTRE Institute and Jeff Lerner
How would you like to live the "laptop lifestyle"?
In other posts, I've talked about work you could do in retirement that could give your life purpose or could bring in some extra income, or both.
Besides that, I was also looking for something that I could start as a "side hustle" while I finish out the last 5+ years of my career, something that could be my bridge into an interesting and purpose-filled retirement. For several years, I had been puzzling over what this could be, but didn't find any good answers.
Then I stumbled into the online world of the ENTRE Institute and bumped into its founder Jeff Lerner. Let me tell you about my experience, culminating with an honest review of ENTRE's products and services.
The Thought Process That Led Me Here
As I've alluded to in previous articles, ever since I turned 50, I've been thinking about what I might want to do with myself when I retire. I developed a strong sense that I wanted a purpose for my life in retirement, something to give my days and years meaning. Thus began the lengthy journey of self-discovery, seeking that elusive bridge to retirement.
I've always loved writing and photography, so I grappled with those topics for several years—what could I do with them that would give my life the driving vision I was looking for? Or would focusing on them as hobbies be enough? What if the economy and/or my finances are such that I need to earn some income in my "retirement career"? There are at least as many writers and photographers starving for gigs as there are actors waiting tables and artists plying their craft at making coffee instead of paintings and sketches.
While I was wrestling with these questions, I realized a few other things along the way:
If possible, I'd like for my "retirement career" to involve helping people.
I love traveling for fun and exploration, so I want to be able to work from anywhere in the world—the "laptop lifestyle" or "digital nomad".
While I do look forward to driving toward a purpose during my retirement years, I don't want another full-time job, if I can avoid it. I want to make sure I have time to enjoy my family and my adventures. I need to find something I can do part-time.
What could possibly address so many different demands?
What About an Online Business?
The "laptop lifestyle"—being able to work from anywhere in the world, as long as I have my laptop and an internet connection—has been beckoning to me for the last five years or more. Particularly if I could find something that would enable me to work no more than a few hours each day (which I can do in the evenings, after my "early bird" wife falls asleep).
Because of this, the thought of starting an online business had been bouncing around in my mind, but I had no idea what my business model would be or how to get started. Although I do have an IT background, I've been more focused on the leadership side of things for the last 20+ years. So when I was actually writing code and doing other "techie" things, the notion of a world-wide web would have conjured up images of an army of very large spiders.
During my quest to find the perfect "retirement career", I had started a "hobby blog". While I have enjoyed doing that and its goal is to help people, I couldn't envision or understand how someone could convert that into an income stream. When I would meet someone who said their job was "blogger", I'd think, "That's a nice hobby, but what do you do for a living?" I never actually asked the question since I didn't want to seem any more like a dinosaur than my gray beard and sensible clothing already conveyed.
Affiliate Marketing—That's How!
Then one day, while looking for something on the web, I came across an ad that said something to the effect of, "Let me show you how to get started with an online business." I thought, "What the heck," and clicked on it. As it turned out, this was my portal into the ENTRE Institute, and my first encounter with Jeff Lerner, CEO of ENTRE Institute and a guy who has made tens of millions of dollars in online businesses.
For a small fee, I was able to purchase a course called the "ENTRE Blueprint", which provided a detailed introduction to the ENTRE Institute and how it can help entrepreneurs get started in an online business. I was so excited! It helped me begin to understand how I could go after something that could potentially meet my widely varied demands! It was the bridge to retirement I had been searching for.
Along with other useful information, the course provided an overview of three different online business models:
1. Affiliate Marketing
2. Digital Agency
3. Online Training
After this course, there's an opportunity to purchase very detailed courses on how to set up each of these types of businesses. These are quite professionally done, taught by experts in these fields, with hours of recorded video and written training materials. More than just training courses, they are basically blueprints that you can follow to create your online business based on experience and expertise of people who have made millions of dollars doing it.
Anyway, before I get to my final recommendation regarding the ENTRE Institute, here are some pros and cons about my interactions with them:
Pros
These guys really know their stuff
Jeff Lerner and the guys teaching the detailed courses have clearly done all the things they talk about in terms of building an online business. There's no way to really confirm the claims they all make about the gobs of money they have made with their businesses—with the possible exception of Jeff, who has received external accolades—but based on how confident they are talking about their areas of expertise, it's not difficult to accept the likelihood that their claims are true.
In my regular career as an IT executive, I have had plenty of opportunities to interview technical candidates applying for jobs, and I've gotten pretty good at discerning whether someone describing their technical achievements is feeding me a line or sincere in their narrative. Leaning on that "BS detector", I really do get the sense that these guys know what they are doing and are earnestly trying to help others succeed by following the blueprints they've created.
The recorded training sessions and accompanying printed materials are very helpful
Even though I've worked in IT my entire career, as I alluded to previously, I shifted over to the leadership side of things well before people were creating online businesses. This means that I had ZERO experience doing this myself. I had no idea how to create a website or affiliate marketing links or email campaigns. Thus, I found it to be quite helpful that all of the recorded training sessions take you through everything you need to do in a very detailed, step-by-step way. The instructors have slides that accompany their training modules, and they flip back and forth between those slides and showing you live on the web.
The prices for the main products seem reasonable
Given how much information and how many materials are provided, plus the quality of the content, I found the prices to be fair. Having said that, I do believe they inflate the value of these things when they tell you how much they *could* be charging for them, but setting aside that marketing hype, I still believe it's a good deal.
Cons
There was a little too much of a push for speed
There was a saying that various people from ENTRE repeated several times: "success loves speed." To be fair, I don't doubt that this is a useful and even necessary sentiment for many of their clients, who in the end may appreciate the frequent nudges to stay on task. However, for me, the situation was (and is) different. I have a good career that pays me well, and I have several other things going on in my life that I'm unwilling to sacrifice. As I explained to them, I was doing this so I could get something going that would be a bridge into retirement for me when I'm ready to make that move. Nevertheless, they continued to urge me to hurry along. I understand the good intentions behind this, but I did find it slightly annoying.
The add-ons seemed very expensive
By add-ons, I'm referring to services such as ongoing coaching and a mastermind group. As with the emphasis on speed, I can certainly understand the benefit and value of these services, but unfortunately, the price tag for these services was fairly steep. Again, from a purely business standpoint, I wouldn't be at all surprised if spending that extra money greatly accelerates your path to a significant income due to having direct personal access to people who have succeeded in onlines businesses, so in the long run it's probably worth it—as the saying goes, sometimes you have to spend money to make money. However, for my situation, at least for now I'm unwilling to sacrifice that much extra time and money to expedite my journey. I may change my mind someday, but it didn't make sense for me.
There was a push to borrow money to pay for the add-ons
This was probably the least enjoyable aspect of my experience—part of the "Implementation Bootcamp" was a segment about leveraging other people's money to fuel your business success. The culmination of this was that they want you to speak to a lender about borrowing money, which turned out to be a suggestion to sign up for multiple credit cards to get the funds required to pay for the expensive add-on services. This seemed (and still seems) like a terrible idea to me. From a business perspective, there are certain situations where it makes sense to seek investors, venture capital funding, and the like. Or even to take on some debt in the form of a bank loan. But to me, starting an internet business with no inventory does not seem to be one of those situations where this makes sense. I was able to cover the reasonable cost for the training and business blueprints with my own funds, and I didn't (and don't) see the need to take on credit card debt to pay for expensive services to accelerate my success.
Final Recommendation
So what's the outcome? All things considered, the positives for me far outweigh the negatives, particularly if you are aware of the odd little pushes at the tail end of the process and can therefore be prepared for them. Having said that, I'm sure that these things that I perceived as negative are not negative at all for some people since they mostly relate to the speed at which you create a lucrative online business.
Note about the Above Link to ENTRE Institute
As I have mentioned in the Full Disclaimer page on this site, when I review a product or service that I like, I will provide a link to make it easier for you to investigate and potentially purchase that same product or service for yourself. Having said that, and while simplifying the purchasing process is the primary goal, I want to also reiterate that I do receive a small commission from the company from whom you purchase it—in this case, ENTRE Institute. There is no difference in price or anything else for you for buying their educational products in this way, and the commission will enable me to keep the website up and running, providing more helpful content in the weeks, months, and years to come.
