Those of you who’ve seen my video on Matt Tran’s channel will know that I got into digital marketing from Seth Hymes’ digital marketing course (a decision I STILL don’t regret).

A while back, Matt mentioned that he wanted to go back and interview some of the first people to give testimonials for the course to see what they’ve been up to in the 1-2 years since we last saw them.

There’s just one problem though…that was almost 6 months ago and Matt still hasn’t gotten around to it….

Since Matt was taking too long. I decided to reach out interview them myself. Here’s what I found

Cynthia Sandoval (The Cool Nerd)

Cynthia’s testimonial was the first one I saw. I actually didn’t watch the testimonials until after I signed up for the course, so for me watching these testimonials wasn’t really about figuring out if I wanted to take the course, but rather hearing the stories of people who had traveled this path before.

Anyway, Cynthia graduated from college in the early 2010s with a degree in communications and spent the next few years trying to find her way (which I find weird because college is supposed to be the promised land where everyone finds their own way riiiight?).

She tried photography, she worked as a graphic designer, she worked a few in between jobs and then stumbled upon the course through Engineered Truth. After reaching out to Anthony Lam (another testimonialite) she decided to take the leap of faith despite not expecting much out of it.

I don’t think she’s ever been happier to be wrong.

Within a month and a half, she was contacted by Issac Rudansky, a creator of one of the Udemy courses Seth recommends. Long story short: She ended up accepting a job at Issac’s agency for a starting salary of around $45k. That may not sound like much in an area like New York, but think about it this way: Within 2 MONTHS she was able to get a job like that with NO previous experience. How often do people change fields that quickly?

Where Is She Now?

After spending some time at the agency, Cynthia decided to take an even BIGGER leap of faith: she left the agency and started freelancing. She expanded her skills so now she isn’t just the google ads girl, or the Facebook ads girl, but just the digital marketing girl. She now helps her clients in any aspect of the business she can instead of limiting herself to just PPC. It took her a few months, but she managed to match and sometimes DOUBLE the amount she was making at the agency. But she didn’t stop there, she’s recently become the marketing manager for Daymond John.

Yeah, THAT Daymond John

Check out my interview with her below

Still not blown away? Well then YOU try breaking into a completely new career field and making almost 6 figures in less than 2 years. GO! Meanwhile, the rest of us will move on to…

Karen Chalco (The Freelancing Champion)

Karen was one of the first people to take Seth’s course and is essentially the poster-child of what you can achieve by learning the skills he teaches. The interesting thing about her is that she’s actually done 2 testimonials for the course, but none of them are on Matt’s Channel. You can only find them on Seth’s Channel.
After taking the course in early 2016, she spent a year interning at a homebuilding company while in college. By the time Seth interviewed her again in early 2017, she had dropped out of college, left the internship, and was making $50K A YEAR as a freelancer on Upwork. Not only that, but she did that while only working about 20 hours/week (Take THAT, traditional 9-5 job!). In short: she’s the poster child of Seth’s course for a reason.

Where Is She Now?

Karen is the type of person who hates stagnating in her life, and especially in her career. So after freelancing for a while, she decided to change things up AGAIN by co-founding a digital marketing agency, Advisify Media. In fact, I should probably have come up with a better nickname for her than “The Freelancing Champion” because she’s transcended being a freelancer. She’s even got to the point where she (a college dropout) is hiring college grads who are older than she is:

Here’s my interview with her:

Zack Zandstra (The Rocket)

Unlike the other people I’ve included in this article, Zack isn’t an early adopter of the course. He’s more like a second generation adopter (he took the course in mid-2017 if I remember correctly, wheras the course was released in early 2016). I decided to include him anyway though, and you’ll soon see why

Zack was originally studying to be a firefighter. Early on, however, he realized it wasn’t for him. Rather than just powering through it and hoping that it would get better, he walked away from it. He spent a while feeling lost and was working as a server at Red Lobster when he started taking the course. He got a job at an agency within a few months of starting the course and eventually was able to work from home 4 days a week. How’s that for work-life balance?

Where Is He Now?

Even though his testimonial is only 6 months old as I write this today, a lot has happened since then. After some time at the agency, Zach left the job and, taking a page out of Karen’s playbook, started his OWN digital marketing agency with his business partner. Optimonster is still in its infancy, but they’ve already got a few clients and are expanding quickly. If nothing else, you gotta give Zack and his partner props for their work ethic and can-do attitude, especially when you consider that his partner has a full-time job on top of the agency.

This is why I decided to call Zack “The Rocket”. What took Cynthia and Karen 2 and a half years to do, he did in less than a year and a half. I get the feeling when I check in again in 2019, he’ll be much further along.

Until then, here’s the  interview: