Julie Syl and Pauli Kalungi on Ultimate Internet Marketing Success
Julie Syl and Pauli Kalungi are top internet marketers with professional backgrounds, but life for them wasn’t always easy. Here is our exclusive interview.
Wow! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview for our readers, Julie and Pauli. I am excited to hear about your Entrepreneurial journey. So, let’s get started with the interview!
You both were studying for respectable professions in the corporate world, Pauli as a Civil Engineer and you, Julie, as a Lawyer. What seemed to be the problem with climbing the corporate ladder?
There was no problem with the corporate ladder. In fact, Paul and I reconnected on a World Bank project we both worked on in Uganda.
He as Clerk of works and Partner in the engineering firm attached to the project.
Myself as Legal Adviser from one of the top Legal firms in Kampala at the time. The corporate ladder was our oyster. Our careers looked very promising, life was great.
Then Paul was offered a full Scholarship for a PhD in Environmental Civil Engineering in 1999, to UK for 3 Yrs.
We were so excited, like our lives were sprinkled with fairy dust. We were newlyweds and a new parent couple. Life couldn’t have looked better.
Paul came to UK on his own as we thought 3 yrs. would fly by. He felt super lonely, 6 months later he came back home for his family!
I agreed to support my husband on his PhD journey. I left my legal career and moved to UK in 2000!
I had high expectations, that were very quickly dashed. I applied to every law firm in the Liverpool Yellow pages, till I turned blue.
Praying all the while for a miracle to happen or I would have to head back to my Job with our then 1yr old baby. This could lead to a disjointed family.
I am not one to wallow in self-pity so I got on with what I had. Got a temporary job as auxiliary nurse, as and when the work came. I was also the working partner as Paul was a full-time PhD student.
God heard my prayers and I got a 2-year apprenticeship in Social Housing with a £8k/year allowance, (There was no job guarantee.)
I purposed to build a new career out of this! I worked like a woman possessed to prove myself worthy of a permanent job at the end of the 2 years.
I worked night and day, I couldn’t afford to give up the auxiliary nursing job. We had bills, a little girl, plus family to support back home. 8k wasn’t enough! (This was 3-4 nights/week + all weekend).
Long hours, sleepless nights, unreasonable supervisors…It got to me. I was missing our little girl’s special moments as a toddler. Left to minders for hours on end. I was home sick, missing my fun filled life and career back home…I was always cold (UK weather lol)!
Then I got pregnant with our 2nd child 2002…A whole new set of challenges arose!
You guys struggled in the UK in the beginning and Julie had to forego her job due to one of the worst pregnancies in history. Can you tell us what life was like at the worst time and what kept you going?
As stated before, we are not ones to wallow in self-pity. We felt blessed to be together as a family despite the challenges, we have a solid bond, we were friends before we dated.
The pregnancy was a hormonal challenge even the doctors were perplexed by. 24/7 Acute hyperemesis for 8 months! So, we placed it in the hands of God. We are strong believers in the power of prayer and positive thinking!
I was off work the whole time, I thought I was going to die! I was in and out of hospital, so now we had no solid income, save for Paul’s student allowance!
Any chance of a job from the apprenticeship flew out the window. I was considered a risky option, despite my clean record before!
Long story short, we had the most gorgeous little baby boy and to date we believe he is a miracle from God!
Again, we were blessed. Pauli finished his PhD in the 3 year window and got offered a Job by 2 Companies. The better offer was a daily 2hr commute! We were super excited; things were looking up…
Soon as I had the baby, I went back to night shifts. Funds were real tight! From the dull monotonous, to back breaking work and the 2-hour commute for Pauli we always seemed apart, exhausted & maybe a wee bit grumpy each day.
We never had much time or money left over for family fun. We were constantly working, living “paycheck to paycheck,” a far cry from the life we had before, nor was it what we had envisaged.
We knew there must be a better way! We prayed, focused on the blessings; our surprisingly healthy baby boy, he was peaceful too. Paul could stay with him while I worked nights! We had health, we had life, 2 beautiful children, we took a plunge & bought our first home!
Despite all the financial challenges! We knew it was a matter of time before things turned around and they did! I got offered a Job in the construction industry…Oh Boy!
I was one of 2 women in the whole team and we were treated like we were “lads” too. I applied for many jobs, they got offered to “a lad.”
I was holding down my job as a Senior Liaison Officer on 4 projects and Dilapidation Surveyor… (I was overqualified for both roles.)
Constantly being passed over on promotions got to me. I asked for time out as my health was suffering too. My request was denied, so I felt the only way to pull myself together was to find a new job 3 years later.
I got one as a Customer services manager back to Social Housing. I loved this job. Then got a challenge with a tenant who claimed I had abused and hit her…!
A false accusation that the company insisted on investigating further despite witnesses to the contrary! I resigned, the recession hit…what timing!
So, Faith, focusing on living one day at a time, breathing, keeping our little ones happy. LOVE, Prayer and our mutual respect for each other these kept us going Erik!
When did you discover internet marketing and how did “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” impact your life?
We were given Rich Dad Poor Dad by Paul’s sister as a Christmas gift. At the time, I was job hunting…This book opened our minds.
What we thought was an asset, our mortgaged home, was actually a liability…What! Plus, so many other preconceived ideas, lots of aha moments.
Maybe we could get a loan and invest in real estate…Again our prayers were heard, we got an invite to check out a network marketing platform from a family member. She asked me to check if it was legit! Clever prospecting strategy huh!
Network Marketing found us!
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Did you start Affiliate Marketing right away or was there a period when you tried network marketing?
Our Journey in this industry started with an MLM…We had First timer’s luck, we hit 5-figures within 6 weeks. Working 60hr weeks, roped in family, friends, church members who were open to an opportunity.
Of course, we run out of family and friends. I started looking into ways to make this work for us. Enter affiliate marketing. 🙂
Sadly, that first company let us down, it shut down, no notice! With our earnings, along with the trust of family, friends. Our self-confidence took a nosedive! We had to start from scratch again!
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When did internet marketing start working for you and how did you scale it?
To be honest internet marketing has been a journey that we stumbled on from a Ray Higdon Facebook post on TESS and his promotion of Tanya Aliza’s Ultimate Branding Blueprint.
By then we were wondering whether our past success was just a fluke. Remember our family & friends didn’t want to know about any “new internet schemes anymore.”
Many had lost lots of money they could ill afford to lose. So, I was looking for a solution, for a better way. Clearly this industry does work, so help us God! 🙂
Paul is happy in his career, so I am the business managing partner. I followed every piece of advice/post Ray shared on Facebook.
We had found our business saviour! We invested in a load of courses. We connected with Tanya Aliza and hit off very quickly, she is amazing. Internet marketing & blogging has saved our business in more ways than you can imagine.
We use various resources to scale our results. Mostly via our CRM. By how many people we impact, who willingly join our network marketing business or even buy our training or affiliate marketing products! And we use good old Google Spreadsheets to record every business spend vis-a-vis our income 🙂
I have always been impressed by your blogs. In fact, I recently discovered your second one: pkjulesworld.com. Can you tell us how old both blogs are, how many posts are on them, and what kind of daily traffic are you getting to them daily?
Thank you Erik. Juleskalpauli.com was launched in November 2014. But our first blog was Juleskal-alpha.blogspot.com. Then we moved to a free WordPress site; Juleskal.wordpress.com, they still exist.
We have over 300 business related posts altogether; although on Juleskalpauli there are 249.
Pkjulesworld.com is our newest blog that just celebrated its first anniversary on 11th November, with 90 blog posts! It is a niche Travel Blog.
We only post one article per week on each site. Thus, our traffic spikes and drops as normal esp. on weekends. If we divide it over the week, I believe we get between 1500 – 2500 visitors per day on each blog!
Of which, 46%+ is Social media driven, 19.7% is direct traffic, 6% referral traffic, 4% mail traffic and 25.4% Organic Search Traffic. We pinned the direct traffic down to Pinterest searches, where we average 700-1500 daily hits depending on the topic and how much we promote said post!
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What has been the best SEO hack you’ve done on your blog to improve your results?
Without a shadow of a doubt we know 2 specific hacks…but we’d would have to shoot you if we shared right…Jox. 😀
Anyhow here are our 2 super hacks. Paul shared a full post on #1.
- Go for the low volume long tailed keywords and clean up with power value packed How-to Posts! We use SEO Samurai to get said keywords. We also Refresh our content regularly by re-posting on socials esp. Pinterest. This has greatly improved our posts ranking too! Our whole Pinterest Marketing Category ranks in search!
- Pinterest – A traffic & SEO Goldmine that many bloggers/network marketers are neglecting. We have a full course for Network Marketers, Home Business & Small business owners: The Ultimate Pinterest Road-map. Details on the blog. We have also written & published a book on Amazon: The Art of Pinterest Profits.
What would you recommend to someone who wants to make money online, where do they start?
- Do your Research on the platform you wish to put your resources. On the Leadership of the company and the affiliates. On the team ethos. Don’t be excited by the dollar $$ signs. Instead Focus on whether the platform is delivering results for many and if so what resources are they using to build.
- Find those creating success, seek their counsel and then jump ALL IN apply their knowledge and learn on the job.
- Be ready to INVEST in your Training, Resources and New skills.
- Have Faith in your ability to build/create something way bigger than you, which will bless both you and lots of others.
- And above all have Faith & the Patience of a Bamboo farmer!
I notice you’re huge on Pinterest. How are you getting Leads from Pinterest?
We use the same strategy as we use on our blogs
We Focused on WHY Pinterest
Why would we want to leverage it?
How are others doing it?
Can we duplicate their actions?
Then we focused on the How & What.
The Quality of Content we share, how often we share it. . .
Quality of Images we use to anchor that content. . .
The Quality of Lead magnets we attach to the images, all these pointing to our Blogs & Offers! See attached Image!
Automation & killer analytics/tracking of the process via a resource called Tailwind.
We build the trust factor via our posts and follow up sequence and we get targeted leads who ultimately chose to buy! 🙂
How has the law of Attraction helped your success and how do you use it?
We believe in a Higher Being. A divine force that works within us. We have been blessed despite the challenges and we are Focused on Gratitude for who, what and where we are; while working smart towards what we desire.
Whatever we focus our thoughts on with purpose or strong emotion, that force serves us! Whether it’s what we want or not.
So, we are learning to channel our thoughts towards what we desire for our lives. This has in turn helped us attract not just the kind of people who love what we offer, but also mentors to guide us to the next level.
The law of attraction has helped us manifest a lot of things some very personal, spiritual and also economical.
Our children know about it and how it relates to our faith. They understand that we are all connected as pure divine energy, unless we chose to mar that energy with negative, toxic thoughts, emotions, words or actions!
We teach our children gratitude, the power of kindness, giving, generosity, grace. Above all, to know who they are: powerful, infinitely blessed beings, able to create their own desired life! A choice many either don’t recognise or chose to consider hocus pocus. 🙂
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What is your favorite book right now and why?
Paul – The Wealth Chef by Ann Wilson. This book gives you all the ingredients and recipes to manage your money and create real wealth! Ann Inspires and mentors you towards financial freedom.
Julie Syl – Be Obsessed or Be average by Grant Cardone! He seems to know exactly how I feel. I always felt like I am capable of great things, create a bigger better world, maybe I was weird or something.
Now I know that I am not alone and have suppressed my natural self far too long. I deserve what I go out and get or create. So why not reach for the stars and never feel guilty about it!
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What are your goals for 2017?
To hit Multiple 6 figures in our Business and write a bestseller as well! To 10X our Results and to get our Daughter into the best University debt free!
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What is your favorite business quote and why?
Julie Syl – My best quote is not a direct business quote: “Put the People First”
No one succeeds on their own and the more people one positively impacts via serving them one way or another, the more personal success one sees!
Paul – St Paul’s word: “My Strength is My weakness”
If I look at a weakness as a challenge placed there for me to rise to a better version of me, then I focus on sharpening the axe, skill up. I make sure I record the process and lessons learnt and share with others! That weakness is now a strength and an asset right!
On that so positive note, allow Paul and I to say a huge thank you for this opportunity to share a little bit about our story and experience with your community. We are so grateful to you Erik. Be blessed, keep serving, keep rocking!
Kindest Regards,
Julie Syl & Paul Kalungi
Wow! This is bar far one of the best value-packed interviews I have ever done, thanks to Julie and Pauli.
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