How passionate educator, Sean Seah Developed A $300K/Month income streams from online education
Sean Seah is a highly sought-after speaker and is the 1st Singaporean to have a foreword written by Mary Buffett, an internationally renowned investment expert.
He is also the youngest speaker at National Achiever Congress 2013 and 2014 which stages speakers like Robert Kiyosaki, Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Tony Blair and Antony Robbins. He speaks at several other conferences and is a frequent Securities Investor Association Singapore (SIAS) speaker.
Could you please tell our readers a brief background about yourself and how you started your business?
In the year 2005, I graduated from a local university and got my dream job to become a military officer. I worked really hard because I wanted to get promoted. But my boss, a female military officer, told me I will not get the promotion because I am not an overseas scholar. She then passed me a book, “Creating Wealth” by Robert G Allen and told me to learn how to create income other than my salary.
I was extremely disappointed but I took her advice and started to learn about investing and business. After exploring and building for years, I left my job by the age of 30 to run my own investments and manage my income streams.
I then got invited to share how I achieve my financial success and that was then I realized I loved sharing and educating. After all, it was my ex-boss who educated me otherwise I would still be in a job which I hoped to have huge prospect but would have never happened. So I started a financial education business in 2015 conducting physical classes in more than 20 cities around the world.
What are the three biggest challenges you have faced growing the business and how did you overcome them?
When I started building my education business, I was adversed to the idea of sales as I had experienced hard-selling sales people. But I come to realise that sales is simply a professional explanation of the services we render.
As an entrepreneur, what is it that actually motivates and drives you?
One thing that motivates me is to that my services which is financial education, can change lives. I know of many people who can and want to do a lot more in life but are stuck due to financial constraints.
What social media platforms do you usually use to increase your brand’s awareness and why?
For paid ads, I use facebook and Instagram more as their targeting is more effective for me, For organic, I use facebook group and youtube channel. I have been exploring tik tok as well. I believe we need multiple channels and continuously learn new ones to be ahead.
What is your main tactic when it comes to making more people aware of your brand and engaging your customers? How did your business stand out?
I believe a lot in content marketing. That’s the reason on my facebook and youtube channels, I teach real, practical strategies, I believe this is not only paying it forward, it builds up a lot of good will too.
What is the toughest decision you had to make in the last few months?
When covid first became something really serious, I had to make a decision, to be defensive in the business, or to be aggressive. To be defensive means to cut cost, freeze hiring and stop expansion. But I decided it is not wise to pay defence. So my team pivoted from physical to online classes. We then market aggressively for our online programmes. The bet paid off and we broke records in 2020. We didn’t lay off anyone and even expanded our team.
Where did your first six figures come from?
My first 6 figures in business came in very quickly within less than 3 months. It was in classes that I conducted.
What excites you most about your industry? Where do you see it heading in the near future?
I am really excited about what I call “real world” education where we share practical financial skills such as investing and entrepreneurship. Unfortunately as per every industry, there some negative aspects of it like people over promising the idea of being able to get rich quick.
But overall, more people are getting aware of the need to learn more real world skills in finances.
If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what would you do differently?
I would have more self confidence. I think it was my lack of self confidence that makes me make a lot of mistakes. I partnered with people I shouldn’t have because I thought they were better than me. But most of such partnerships didn’t turn out well.
What’s your daily routine? How do you achieve work-life balance?
I wake up at 5am daily. I sleep early so I can do that. I start with prayers and meditation. I also schedule my calendar so that I block out time with my family!
Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
Happier, healthier, wealthier!
What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
I really love trello. It helps to organize my thoughts and my projects.
What piece of advice do you wish someone had given you at the start of your career?
Actually, someone did give me the advice. My exboss told me to build multiple streams of income. Building additional income stream is an important skill. Continue
What advice would you give to a newbie Entrepreneur setting up their first business?
Have the attitude of Testing And Learning. Treat it like a computer game and know that we may take a few tries to pass a stage. But each time we hit into an obstacle, we realized there is something there we need to either avoid or overcome. Enjoy the game and eventually, we will get the prize.
