The First Time I Built a Business to Nearly Nine Figures, It Almost Broke Me.

The Second Time, It Almost Killed Me.

Hey, my friend. Double P here. What I want to do is talk to you about business building.

The first time I built a nearly nine figure business, I was off by about five million.

It almost broke me.

The second time I built a nearly nine figure business, it almost killed me.

So I'm going to share my story with you.

But first, what I'm going to do is log into my corporate account so that you can see PROOF. This lets you know that I can help you and assures you that you can get results.

If you haven’t watched the video above, you should definitely go watch it, then come back here to read my story and learn how it can help you.

Let's go back to the beginning. I’ve been online and building things online since 2001.

The first time I cleared seven figures was in 2007. That’s when I made my first official seven figures online. I remember talking with my accountant about the taxes, having to cut the check to the G man, and spitting on the check while thinking to myself, “Never again.”

From there, it wasn't until 2012 that I really hit my groove.

By then, I had built two CPA networks and sold both by 2013 for multiple eight figures. Then I had my first major health scare, and it was very bad.

The thing I'm trying to tell you is that business isn't all about Lambos, yachts, and private jets. You know, the “gurus,” the “business gurus,” the business bros, and the business girls will never tell you about the truly ugly side of business building.

The pain, the damage, the misery, the headaches, including most of the bad stuff.

You know what I mean?

“They” don't give you the whole picture of what it takes to build a successful multi seven figure or multi eight figure business online.

When you watch the video above, you can see what my companies have done so far this year.

One of the things you'll notice in the video is that I'm a big fan of recurring revenue.

I've always been a big fan of it.

But here's the thing: I didn't start using the recurring revenue model until 2012. Before then, I was always creating products, building services, charging one price upfront, and then doing that over and over again.

What happened was that I always felt like I was on a never ending hamster wheel.

I was building products, building my clients' businesses, building my own business, doing product launches, and helping clients launch their products and services. It just got tiring.

Then, in 2012, I launched my first recurring product. It was a monthly recurring product, and people stayed for almost a year.

And I was like, “Huh! Well, that's interesting.”

Now, I'm a little bit of a knucklehead. It takes me a while to catch on to things, but what I caught on to quickly was this: I thought to myself, “There's really something here. People don't mind paying monthly for stuff.”

From that point on, after 2012, I stopped using one off pricing and started building recurring products. Every product and service became recurring. Everything.

And it's been like that since 2013, so I'm huge on recurring revenue.

That's just the way to go because, at the end of the day, I'm not saying I'm a lazy guy, but I am kind of a lazy guy, and I fully admit it.

My line of thought is this: Why do something once and get paid for it once when you could do something once, provide a bunch of value to someone, and continue getting paid? When I say value, I mean that you're continually helping people.

You're continually refining your product or service.

You're always giving clients more than what they're paying you.

That's the meaning of value.

That's what gives you the right to charge monthly recurring revenue.

So I'm a huge fan of that.

Now, when entrepreneurs, business owners, affiliates, coaches, consultants, and agency owners come to me, because I do a lot of mentoring and consulting, here is what bothers me.

What bothers me is that, as I'm doing consultations and mentoring, many entrepreneurs and business owners don't know their numbers.

And I'm going to tell you right now: If you don't know your numbers, don't know what your KPIs are, and don't have any goals set, then you basically don't have a business.

There will come a point when you want to exit it.

That means you may want to be acquired, sell the business, or give away equity in the business.

Well, how are you going to do that if you don't know your numbers? It's very simple.

When I say simple, I mean this: Once you understand your front end costs, customer acquisition cost, and deliverables, and stabilize those numbers, you can reverse engineer the business at scale and say to yourself:

I know what my business is worth.

I can validate it because I've got the numbers.

I know exactly what's going on inside my business, and I can put it on the auction block.

I can put it on the acquisition block.

I can put it on the selling block.

I can do what I want with it.

If you want to raise funds and give away equity, you can do that because you know your numbers.

And, more importantly, you will know how to interpret your numbers, so you can do all of the above when the time comes.

So it's very important to know your numbers, but many people who come to me don't know their numbers at all.

So one of the first things you have to understand is that you need to know your numbers, and that is where I can help you. I will help you not only know but understand all your business metrics, because it's hard when you don't have the correct formulas, systems, and processes in place.

But more on that in a second.

Let's get back to the video above.

Now, what does it take to build a business like this? Well, it takes a team, right?

I was one of the first guys in our online and internet marketing space to talk about what it takes to build a team.

Specifically, what it takes to build an “A player team.”

Now, what does it take to attract, motivate, incentivize, and inspire an A player?

Well, there are pillars around that, and I can talk to you about the pillars of what it takes to build A player teams.

At one point, I had over 125 people working for me, and I was in over 140 different niche markets from 2007 onward.

And I can tell you that it was absolute chaos.

That was the first time the business almost broke me, and every aspect of it played a part. I had ulcers, lost weight, and couldn't sleep.

My adrenal glands were punched, which meant I had no energy.

I had a hole in my gut. Everything was just messed up.

Was I making a bunch of money?

Yeah. At that time, I was a multi eight figure per year marketer.

I had a huge company, but I also had huge headaches. This is what the gurus don't tell you online: what it really takes.

At that point, I was on a beach in Asia, and I collapsed.

People rushed me to the hospital.

I was down and out for six weeks in the ICU.

It was a bad scene, and that's what it took to get to nearly nine figures.

I was probably at more than $90 million at that time, and it was a nightmare.

Let me tell you something: That is what the business bros and business girls won’t tell you.

So I scaled everything back, because the second time I built a nearly nine figure business, it literally almost killed me.

This was between 2017 and 2019.

There were two health incidents because I was pushing myself far too hard.

I was building a monster business, and I literally got the big C.

From 2017 to 2024, that was a huge battle, and I kept quiet about it for the most part.

I posted about it in 2023 and 2024 to let people know, because people were wondering what was going on.

So I finally had to say, “Listen, this is the problem with building a nine figure empire.”

“Your health is going to take a toll, and I don't want that anymore.”

So that was the second time I was building a nine figure empire.

Now, this is the third time that I'm building my empire, but I don't really have a desire to be a billionaire.

One of my business partners wrote a post on social media saying he thinks I'll be a billionaire, and I could come close to it.

But at this point, my health, mindset, peace of mind, and family are more important to me.

I don't ever have to work again for the rest of my life, and neither do my children, because of the way I've set everything up. But revenue remains very important.

So I've scaled back.

My team now consists of ten people, and we're very close.

I'm now out of all those niche markets I used to be in.

I'm probably in seven or eight niche markets now: the big ones.

I've created masterminds on licensing. I learned licensing from one of the best in the business, and I've gone on to help other entrepreneurs with licensing.

Licensing is awesome.

Fast forward to today...

I've been blessed to build a business that runs completely without me. That's not a brag. It's the entire point of what I teach. For every client I take on, I build their ideal custom outcome.

The S.M.A.R.T™ Marketing Consulting Program and the Strategic Mentoring Mastermind form a responsive advertising and marketing strategy that automates and accelerates your customer cycle while increasing profits by customizing your marketing message for the exact person you're trying to reach.

I teach cutting edge marketing techniques that produce outstanding results and create real transformation inside your business.

That's not a claim.

It's a track record built over more than two decades, with entrepreneurs across every niche you can think of.

I don't believe in cookie cutter systems because every entrepreneur's journey is different. What I believe in is a strategic blueprint tailored to you, followed by relentless execution.