Although it may sound like a too-good-to-be true deal, Nicholas Kusmich quit his day job to earn millions online.
Kusmich, who runs a Facebook marketing agency called H2H Media Group — as well as doing personal consulting — was a Protestant pastor for 14 years in Toronto. He took a small salary of about $23,000 (Canadian $30,000) per year.
Now, with his new work, he says he earned $2.1 million in 2016, and is on track to earn $2.6 million this year.
"When I originally felt a calling, it was because I wanted to help people," Kusmich said. "My narrative at the time told me, 'You should go into pastoring.' I had a congregation of about 100 people."
"But the primary reason I wanted to do it was to touch and help people," he continued. "Pastoring taught me how to help and speak. I'm still able to reach and touch and help and hold people, but from a much greater scale."
The former pastor stumbled upon online marketing in 2010 when he was looking for ways to supplement his income. After taking a few classes and reading blogs, he learned the easiest way to make money online was to sell a niche product.
"The training I took taught me to find a niche that had a huge consumer base where people were spending millions and millions of dollars," Kusmich said. "It's an easier thing to sell something to large niches with proven buyers than it is to sell 'how to grow large tomatoes in your tomato garden.'"
Since he was interested in natural health remedies, Kusmich wrote an e-book on how to lose weight naturally, and sold it for $20 to $30 a copy. He used a pen name so his congregants wouldn't know his side business. After selling a few hundred copies, he realized it wasn't going to be a "huge mass of success."
However, he decided to turn the e-book into an online course, which cost up to $197. Kusmich used the e-book, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) advertising and other social media techniques to market the classes. Eventually it caught the eye of another company working with former "Biggest Loser" winners, who bought the content and other assets from him for $25,000.
"I got pretty good at it, and thought if I can help myself, I could do this for others," Kusmich said. It gave me the confidence and credibility and skill set to say I know what I'm doing here."
In early 2015 Kusmich started H2H Media Group, which consults and runs Facebook advertising for businesses. He decided to specialize on the platform because he felt it had the most promise. Although he was concerned about giving up a small yet stable salary, his girlfriend at the time (who later became his wife) helped him realize Facebook marketing was what truly made him happy.