Zara Shirwan

When Fiona lost both of her parents within two years of each other it prompted her to take a sober look at her life and re-assess her priorities. Looking at her two young children, Fiona started thinking the inevitable: 'It's not fair on them that I'm working all the time -- Life's too short. What if something happened to me -- what would I leave them?'

With twenty years marketing experience under her belt, Fiona has worked her way up from a trainee in a Scottish advertising company to Marketing Manager in a major car dealership firm. Working from 9am to 6.30pm, at best Fiona saw her children for an hour a night, when putting them to bed. Looking back, Fiona comments that this wasn't a happy time.

"It wasn't a happy hour that I spent with them," she said.  "It was a fraught time as I was tired after a hard day at work and had to get them ready for bed. I wasn't getting the time to enjoy my children and losing both my parents made me realise how important it is to make time for your family, especially when the children are so young."

Though Fiona's employer showed understanding when she had to take time off work to tend to her asthmatic son, she couldn't shake that guilty feeling of 'letting the team down' in the office -- a feeling which most working mothers can relate to.

After weighing up the options, and with the financial help of her parents estate, Fiona resolved to take a year off of work to focus on doing up the new family home and planning her future.

Fiona noted: "Whilst working on the house I was eBaying on the side, and I soon became a silver 'power seller'. I started off selling perfumes and aftershave but it became more and more difficult because the market was being flooded with fakes and I just couldn't compete on the price.  I started researching what was selling on eBay and came across a brand called 'Leg Avenue' which is an American company selling sexy adult fancy dress costumes. They were really good fun, and a higher profit margin than perfumes, so I sourced a supplier, imported them from the States and sold the costumes on. I was turning over about four thousand pounds a month which, with the money left to me by my parents, was enough to tick by."

"It wasn't just about the money," Fiona continued." eBay was also a link to the outside world. I'm from Scotland and was living in Essex so didn't have many people around me and I looked at eBay as a kind of hobby, which I would work at when the kids were at school. It definitely filled a gap -- my children and husband are great, but sometimes you need contact with people outside of your family!"

With her solid marketing background, Fiona knew she could progress and began venturing outside of eBay, searching the internet for other business opportunities. Beginning with affiliate marketing, clickbank and pay per click, Fiona went in 'gung ho' and lost around £1,200 on her projects after following the advice given in a series of eBooks.

"It's a bit like gambling" Fiona quips. "You keep thinking 'I'll just keep on going and make my money back', but I never did."

Stumbling across Nick James via a 'licensing secrets' forum recommendation, Fiona emailed Nick directly and asked him how to go about it.  Nick replied promptly, and, rather than 'selling' to Fiona, suggested that she read his book 'Think Big' and get back to him when she'd had time to think things through. 

"I was really impressed that Nick responded to me so fast and I was impressed by his honesty," she said. "I wasn't in the best place emotionally at that time and my fingers had been burned. Reading Nick's book started triggering lots of ideas and changed my mindset -- I started to feel confident and positive again. It gave me the strength to 'think big' and resolved my courage to 'make things happen.'"

Fiona joined up to Nick-James.com and spent the first few months following discussions on the forum -- without posting. Eventually a marketing related question was posted by another member which she felt experienced to answer. Following that first post, Fiona hasn't looked back and is now an active forum member.

"When I posted my reply, I was immediately overwhelmed by support from the other members. They were surprised at the depth of my knowledge and suggested that I make my marketing experience work for me by writing an eBook on the subject," she said.  "I'd been looking around for a product and all the while the answer was staring me in the face. For twenty years I'd been using my brain to make other people rich -- now it was time for me to benefit!"

Fiona is now back at work as a Marketing Manager for a mail order firm and is working on her own eBook in the evenings.

"I want to earn enough to be at home with the kids and be content and happy," Fiona added.  "Ideally, I'm looking to clear between four and five thousand pounds a month. And, thanks to the continuing support and encouragement of Nick and Nick-James.com members, I feel that my goal is within reach."