Andrew Koh was formerly the Chief Agency Officer of HSBC Insurance in Singapore. He was quite comfortable with life until he got retrenched.
Internet Marketing gave him a fresh start.
His journey began in 2012 when he went for a preview conducted by Fabian Lim. He signed up for the course, applied the skills he learnt from Fabian and within two weeks, his first website was up and ranking on page 1 of Google search results page.
This feat easily allowed him to stand out among Fabian’s student population as many students in his cohort were still undergoing mentoring while his site was already ranking!
Since then he has gone from strength to strengthen, building and owning a number of websites ranking on page 1, even for niches that are super competitive.
It was his success in ranking websites easily plus his very impressive corporate track record which convinced Fabian to reach out to him, appointing him as Chief Trainer of Click Events and teaching the company’s flagship program Real Internet Secret Plus; he held this position till early 2017.
Today he owns Biz Edge, a Singapore web design company and Awesome Sites, the leading WordPress training provider here.
A One of a Kind Internet Marketing Coach
Indeed there is no Internet Marketing trainer with the qualifications and experience Andrew has. He holds a Certification in Advanced Search Marketing, issued by the world-renowned Search Engine Academy based in the USA.
More impressively, he is possibly the only Internet Marketing trainer in Singapore who has ever held senior positions in an MNC environment; his last corporate rank held while at HSBC Insurance was that of Senior Vice President.
With more than 18 years experience in roles like Sales management and marketing, he has the ideal combination of technical skills, knowledge and real work marketing experience to guide and lead complete beginners to Internet Marketing success.
Below is a 11 mins video where Andrew shared his personal story on stage in front of a few thousand people.
(And a transcript of the video is provided below it if you prefer to read.)
Transcript of Andrew Koh’s Video
Hi! My name is Andrew. I think before I start, I just want to check.
How many of you are from the insurance line?
Okay. For some of you, if you’re in AIA for example, just before the AIG crisis, you probably know who I am, because I was at that point in time, the Regional Director of Agencies in AIA Singapore.
I left that job to join HSBC Insurance as their Chief Agency Officer.
It was a job that I held, I think, until 2012, when I was retrenched. So, that was the first part of my story.
At this point in time, some of you may be asking – you know, maybe I’m very, very smart. Because why? I know how to leave AIA at the point in time to join HSBC Insurance when AIG was having some trouble.
The truth is, at that point in time, when I switched over to HSBC Insurance, I had no idea how bad the situation at AIG was. The fact that my timing was so good was only purely coincidental. But more importantly, if I was smart, I would not have been retrenched.
The second thing that some of you may be wondering ‘If you are an agent, how can you even be retrenched?’
And that’s a funny thing, because a lot of people, whenever I mention I’m from AIA or HSBC Insurance, the automatic connotation is that I wasn’t an agent, I was a corporate staff.
My role as Chief Agency Officer, for example, was that I was in charge of the agency distribution. That means I’m in charge of all the people who were selling for HSBC Insurance at that point in time and my job was to report to the company their sales and so on.
As a corporate staff, I can be retrenched and I was retrenched.
Having said that, if I were to look back, I’m actually quite happy that I was retrenched.
I can now control my time better, because I really couldn’t control my time very well when I was working. I can spend more time with my children and, more importantly, I can be at special events in their lives, their milestones, which I couldn’t before.
And I also can spend more time to appreciate my wife, go on dates with her, which sad to say, I couldn’t last time, as well. But that’s not the topic for today.
Because I’m only given four minutes and in those four minutes, I think it’s more important to share with you the things that I’ve learned in my journey since my retrenchment and perhaps how it applies to you.
So, at this point in time, when I was first retrenched, I remember asking myself what my options were.
I think it’s a natural thing to do and it’s exactly what I did.
I told myself, 1) I didn’t want to work for anybody else, I didn’t want to be an employee once again, which means that if I didn’t win, I would probably have to become a business owner.
But I had another problem. I didn’t want to be a business owner, at least not a 100% business owner, because I was afraid that I may lose everything that have already.
I have not exactly very small commitments, I got a lot of family to feed, I got my parents, I got my in-laws, I got my wife who’s not working, I got three children. And if that’s not enough, I have three dogs also. And trust me, my dogs can eat a lot.
So, having said that, I felt that it’s one thing to be single and to risk everything that I have and one thing to be married and to have a family and to risk their futures as well.
So, I didn’t want to invest too much in any business I wanted to start. So, it draws me to the next step.
‘Do I have any skills?’
At that point, I was very, very shocked. Shocked, because when I asked myself, the only skill, after working for so long, that I had was probably to be an employee.
‘I don’t know how to do any other things other than being an employee.’
So, without any skills, I had to dig deeper, so I asked myself what my hobbies were.
Believe it or not, I like magic, I’m quite a good magician. Actually, I’m quite a good dog trainer, as well. And that is my other hobby, which is also the reason why my first site was the Dog Training Singapore website.
But at that point in time, I asked myself ‘Can this make me a proper income? At least the income that I’m used to earning.’
And I concluded then that it couldn’t. Maybe today I would change my mind, because after creating the website, I can see how my dogs trainers are earning, so I know I can make a very profitable income there, but at that point in time, I thought I couldn’t.
So, that led me to another hobby that I have which is very obscure maybe. And that was SEO or what you call ‘search engine optimization’ or putting your page on page 1 on Google.
Whether you believe it or not, at that point in time, it was something that intrigued me a lot. And every hobby I have either intrigues me or allows me to impress people. And when you are able to put a page on page 1 and you show your friends, they are impressed.
But my skill level at that point in time, unfortunately was probably I can only rank for all those words that nobody else wanted to rank for, the very simple and lousy words.
But the commercial words, the words that everybody was going for, I can’t touch it at all.
So, when I asked myself the three most helpful things that I have, the best was SEO. So, I started on my journey.
I needed to find a mentor or somebody who could help me or guide me. So, I started researching and found out that there was a very reputable school in the US, it’s called the Search Engine Academy.
I asked myself even if I should fly to the US to learn. And that’s when I went deeper in the website and I found out they actually had a coach base in Singapore that can even certify people for advanced SEO.
And the only person in Singapore and that happens to be Mister Fabian Lim. And that’s how I ended up in his school.
So, it was a simple search around which eventually led me to him and eventually led me to signing up for the course.
After I signed up for the course, the first miracle happened.
Because, like I said, I had been playing with websites, but even if my site ever reached page 1, it was for very uncompetitive keywords and for keywords that probably, after six months to one year, they have gone to page one.
But after going for the course, actually, the day that Google indexed my site, dogtrainingsingapore.org, the day it was indexed, it was already on page 1 of Google.com.
And within one month, it was on page 1 of Google.com.sg, as well, including the top place that has been holding there since, without me having to do much on the site alone.
Today, if you ask me, the site easily makes me four figures. Nothing compared to what I used to be earning when I was a Chief Agency Officer, but at least I don’t have to do anything.
And the best part of it all is that the skills that Fabian taught me that were used to build that site, I simply rinse and repeat and build other sites.
So, dogtrainingsingapore is not the only that I have, it’s the site that is publicly being shown, because I prefer to keep my other sites to myself.
But I have today more than…let’s just say I have a number of sites all on page 1, all making good money. And that’s how I’m able to sustain my living.
Having said that, today, if somebody were to come to me and ask me to do, for example, SEO or anything for them, I can see immediately whether it’s profitable, whether this is something I should go into because I can estimate how many people visit my website, how difficult it is to rank, all these things that I’ve learned, everything is really from Fabian.
Today there are business owners who come to me and ask me to do lead generation for them, some of which I reject, because I only have two hands and two legs, I do not have time for everybody.
I’ve got people asking me to do SEO for them, paying me four figures a month as a retainer alone which, again, I reject, because I feel that if I have limited time, the only time I want to spend is to work on my own sites.
Today I’ve got headhunters calling me to go Indonesia, Malaysia and even as far as China. Again, I’ve been able to reject all of them. There’s nothing to do with the skills I’ve learned in IM, but more towards my previous job.
But the fact is I’m able to reject them because of the things that Fabian has taught me.
Today, if you were to ask me every single thing that I know, how to make money for myself, I learned from one person and that person is Fabian, which is why when he asked me to come today, I only said one thing: ‘yes’.
The last things I’d like to share with you is what we call ‘trap’.
Because I was having such a cushy job, I really felt that it was a trap.
A trap in the sense that you never felt that you needed to learn anything else in life, because everything is taken care of by itself.
The next month, the pay will come and everything will be wonderful. So, even though you look at it, things may have worked out okay for me, have you ever imagined what it would have been like for me if I’d known the things I knew, say one year or two years before I lost my job?
If I’d been able, for example, to have ten, twenty or thirty websites, all on page 1, all making good money, even before I got my retrenchment letter – how much more wonderful would that have been for me?
It’s just like learning how to drive. Would you want to learn how to drive first or buy your car first? If you buy your car first and you cannot pass your driving exams, it will cost you a lot of money.
And that’s what happened to one of colleagues. She bought a car first and spent more than five months learning how to pass the exams. So, every day, she can only stay there and look at how beautiful the car is, but cannot drive. It is very, very costly.
So, my point is this. It’s a very, very simple ‘take home’.
You may be having a comfortable life now, you may be like me or better than myself, but does it hurt to learn a skill, something that you can use, that you can count on yourself?
Because who’s the best person to take care of you other than yourself?
Because if you talk to insurance professionals, they will tell you need to protect your family, you need to protect your income, but that is under the assumption that something happens to you.
What if something doesn’t happen to you, but you become obsolete? Who is going to take care of you then?
More importantly, maybe I didn’t share this with Fabian as well, but I felt that I’m probably in a very good position to share a view on who you should go to, why, because at my previous job, I attended a lot of courses, a lot of seminars.
For Internet Marketing alone, I dare to share that I went to learn from three different people, one of whom is even a student of Fabian.
And after learning, I realized why Fabian is the master and maybe she is the student.
But having said all that, if there is nothing else you take away from what I decide to say today, then whether you decide to join or not, I can tell you that I do not have a single cut, I’m just doing this because of appreciation, though as I think of it, maybe one day I should negotiate Fabian a cut.
Well, having said that, I’m sharing all this not to come here and tell you I’m retrenched and all that, I’m sharing it from my heart, how I feel and how I believe he has helped me to change my life and how I believe he can help you to change your life.
So, ladies and gentlemen, basically, think about what I said and think about what Shanneez and Hong Chong have said as well and subsequently, make your decision.
And I wish you the best of luck! Thank you!
To Learn More
Andrew Koh will be personally conducting a FREE workshop on the coming Tuesday Evening at 7.30pm. To learn more from him, why don’t you register for this free workshop where you have a chance to see him in person.
As Seats are limited, do note that admittance to the preview is strictly by registration only as these sessions are usually full.