I was a bartender working for £4.50 an hour… now I'm worth £20 million

A BARTENDER who worked for £4.50 an hour has revealed how he turned his life around and became a multi-millionaire.

Dad-of-two James Dooley, 40, used £10,000 of his savings to start a business from his bed – and is now CEO of 30 different companies.

6

6

6

The Manchester entrepreneur worked day and night to build his first SEO company, Promo SEO, which is now worth more than £20 million.

It was a feat made possible thanks to the lessons of his parents.

James said he and his two older brothers “never had any money” growing up, but their parents both “worked extremely hard.”

His father, who ran a steel company in Sheffield, and his mother, a secretary, “taught me that life is about what you put into it”.

The CEO explained: “My father died when I was just 16 years old and it turned our whole family life upside down.

“Both my older brothers, David and Mark, have moved away and it was a difficult few years with my mother doing everything she could to keep us all together at a very difficult time.

'At the time I was getting into debt, but she was my absolute hero and paid off all my debts, forcing me to put a repayment plan in place to make up for it.

“It took my mother a lot of effort and she had to remortgage her house.”

James said he was determined to make some decent money – even if it meant working three jobs and cleaning toilets – because if he didn't pay his mother back, she would lose her house.

He recalls: 'I started working in a call center to pay the bills, which was a very difficult period for me.

“I was told I had to renovate 20 times a day, calling people all the time – it was a very tough job.

“I was earning £4.50 an hour but the shifts were long and included evenings and weekends.

“I absolutely hated every minute of it.”

Despite the hardships, James remained positive and focused on achieving success – in the form of freedom, not money.

He wanted his own company.

It took eight years of hard work, but he finally succeeded.

James said: “Growth was never linear and in the first six years I failed so many times.

“When I made my first million, the first thing I thought was, 'My dad would be proud of me.' It felt great because I earned it.”

Knowing very little about search engine optimization as the process was still new in 2011, the self-proclaimed “digital landlord” had to learn the ropes by making some costly mistakes.

It was “really hard,” he said, especially at first, but after many hours of playing with Google's algorithms to help websites rank higher in searches, he was successful.

James said: “I was short of money and I just had to failure at work to understand and learn from my mistakes.

“I woke up sweating and worried about money, it was always tight. But in a strange way I thrive on my failures.

“It makes me more determined than ever.”

Spurred on by the feeling of making his first £1 million, James launched a second company, PromoPixa, and then a third.

He managed to earn his second £1 million just four years after earning his first – from then on the money snowballed.

Today he lives a comfortable life with his wife Kerri, 37, and their two children, Anastasia, three, and Tommy, one.

The family of four enjoys plenty of experiences and travel and James, although not a fan of flashy cars or luxury Rolexes, is the proud owner of 13 racehorses.

He now has 30 companies under his belt, including advertising company Promo Media, marketing company Uniplay Ltd and Dooley Investments.

To those hoping to make it as he did, he said: 'If you set up a good quality business, you can spend two hours a night on it and you'll be amazed at how quickly it can make you more than a full-time track. function.

“I'm not saying you can make millions overnight, but if you work at it, you can create something you're really proud of.”

6

6

6