From the Desk of Chris Laub

Present Location: Rio De Janeiro

It was March of 2008 when a fistfight changed my life forever.

At the time, I’d been working as an Account Manager at a digital marketing agency in Los Angeles.

The fight happened on a mild, LA winter morning.  I was minding my business when my buddy (who got me the job) stormed into the office.

Hair tussled and shouting, something had obviously gone down.

Turns out my friend had got into a fight in the elevator of our company’s building.  I guess one of the guys in our I.T. department owed him some money for a project they’d been working on.

As a result of the fight, both were immediately fired.  Apparently we weren’t supposed to have barroom-style brawls at work. #WhatASurprise

The next day, my boss realized he’d just fired our one and only salesperson.  With no one to man the phones for a rapidly growing agency, this was an urgent problem.

To fill the gap, our CEO asked if anyone in my department was interested in handling sales calls.  With no one else jumping at the opportunity – and enticed by the possibility of earning commissions on top of my salary – I volunteered.

Fast forward a bit and I was very quickly put in charge of sales full-time.

As one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. (#67 on the Inc. 5000 that year), the company was booming.  And because I was the one and only salesperson for such a rapidly growing company, my income exploded alongside it.

Newly single, I began using my extra income to travel overseas. In the beginning, I would stay in hotels like a normal tourist.  But after meeting some backpackers – and becoming lonely traveling by myself – I switched over to staying in hostels.

After hearing of my overseas adventures, one of my dad’s friends gave me a copy of the 4-Hour Work Week.  And while it’s cliche to say, that book really did change my life.

In particular, it introduced me to the possibility of digital entrepreneurship.  See, despite my income, I was miserable inside.  As Tim put it: I felt a “gaping hole in my soul” every time I had to wake up and commute to work.

So, after months of pondering, I left my job to travel and figure out this online business stuff. Then – in November 2010 – I pulled the trigger.

Unfortunately, my first attempts at online business were a disaster.  I jumped from idea to idea while constantly chasing bright shiny objects.  Like many beginners, I never stuck with any one thing long enough to achieve success.

Sadly – by April 2014 – I’d burnt through my life savings without getting a single business off the ground.

Eventually, my funds got so low I had to move back into my mom’s two-bedroom apartment.  As a 29-year-old man who’d just tasted three years of freedom, this was beyond embarrassing.

With no car, my only option for getting out of the house was to ride around on my mom’s pink beach cruiser.  To mask the shame I felt riding a pink bike, I’d wrap the frame in a beach towel so people driving by wouldn’t see it.

Her bike was identical to this.

On top of that, my love life was non-existent.  After meeting some amazing women during my travels, being back at my parent’s crushed my spirit.

When I went on dates, I tried to brush off the fact I was living at home by mentioning how I’d “just gotten back from traveling” and “was trying to find a new place.”

What a lie that was.

With my cash running low, I realized it was time to face the music and look for a job.  But then a funny thing happened:

As I started to browse the job sites, my brain shut down

After three years of freedom, the thought of going back to a 9-5 was soul-crushing.  Too much to handle.

So, in a moment of desperation, I decided I would give this online business thing one last attempt.

With less than a thousand dollars to my name, I knew I had to be smart.

My plan involved contacting local businesses and letting them know I could help them get 5-star Yelp reviews.  Only problem was: The “plan” for getting clients involved sending lead generation letters through the mail.

Something I knew absolutely nothing about.

So, I bought a copy of Dan Kennedy’s Ultimate Sales Letter and read it cover-to-cover – twice.  Then I drove around town putting my campaign together on the cheap.

After printing my letters off at the library (for ten cents a piece), I sat at my mom’s kitchen table stuffing, licking, and hand-writing the addresses myself.

By the fourth day, my campaign was ready.  The night I dropped my letters off at the post office was a night I will never ever forget.  I was so desperate to get some kind of business going I actually kissed the bundle of envelopes before dropping them in the mailbox.

And lo and behold: Three days later, the calls started coming in!

By Wednesday of the following week, I’d landed my first four-figure client.  So I ran the campaign again and landed another $1,500 in business. At which point I realized:

“Wow, that stuff I wrote is actually getting people to respond. I can make money with this!”

With my new business humming along, I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand to keep my expenses low as I grew the business.

Lantern Festival, Thailand, 2014.

By the end of 2014, however, I had to shut that company down because of fulfillment issues.  At which point I had another realization:

“If I was able to get results for myself as a total beginner – with a low-budget campaign I scrapped together at the library – surely I could use my writing to help real businesses with their marketing.”

So – in January 2015 – I hung my shingle as a freelance copywriter and started taking on clients. And while I wasn’t quite an “overnight success,” my career exploded pretty fast.

In 2016, my deep understanding of survey-based market research got me an invitation to work with NY Times and WSJ bestselling author Ryan Levesque (founder of the ASK Method and Bucket.io).

In 2017, I was invited to work for Clients on Demand – industry leader in the “How to Get Premium Clients” space.  While there, I was responsible for critiquing, editing, and writing copy for nearly 200 lead-generation funnels.

Fast forward to today and my client list includes companies across dozens of B2B and B2C industries, including a variety of Shark Tank, Inc. 5000 and Two Comma Club winners.

In particular, as a Twitter / 𝕏 Ghostwriter, I now help founders build a Personal Brand that grows their network, increases their impact, and positions them as an industry thought leader.

Outside of work, I’m a huge dog lover, avid surfer, and permanent resident of Brazil (where I live in the most amazing city on Earth: Rio de Janeiro).

~ Chris Laub

PS – This site is not updated on a frequent basis and mainly exists for people who Google my name.

If, however, you’d like to discuss working together, please use the Contact Form here or book a link on my calendar below. You can also access my social media profiles and other relevant links here.