I need SERIOUS help - My business is way out of line | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

9 years ago

Hey. If things are going alright from a sales point, I would say stick with what you are doing. If things are getting out of hand with having time to take care of the operations, you should probably set a schedule to do things or days that you take care of calls, emails, etc. Really sounds like you need more people and could even do a commission based offer for employees that would probably boost sales

Thanks

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Peter Lessard

9 years ago

There is a disconnect here between what you are stating as issues and what you are suggesting as solutions.

You seem frustrated by how you feel and structure
but
your suggestions are all about getting more business
or
changing or niching down on who you do business with.

How much business you have and who you do work for will NOT change that feeling you have right now unless much of that feeling is based on fear. If you are afraid that just a few clients leaving can wreck your life then it is rather natural that you are losing some sleep.

I have been there and done that.

That "feeling" of things being a mess or out of control will not go away until you have systems in place in your business and life that make you feel better about it all. Building those systems/processes are as much work as getting clients but once you get it done it serves you for years.

Here is a reality that was pointed out to me when I was in your situation.
You DO NOT have a business!
You have a job with a few helpers. Like many of us did you hustle, sell, build and get help when you need it.
If I did not value the guys opinion so much who told me that (he bought and sold million dollar businesses like we buy socks) I might of punched him in his face.

Eventually it sank in and I adjusted.

If you want to keep having a job thats ok, you like others on here will just keep getting paid more and more and work more and more for people that you prefer to work with. Its called being a consultant and it can be a nice life.
It can drive you nuts or make you happy based on how you set it up.

If you want a business you will have to change things so that you could actually be removed from the equation and it would still have value.

They are two very different entities and require different skills.
Once you know what you want as a person I think your business will fall in place the way you want it.

I am sure many people will chime in with books/software and other things that will help you with putting some structure in place so I won't go down that path.

Good luck!

[ 3 ] Thanks
2 replies

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shadow92

9 years ago

You're right Peter. There is a disconnect. I know it will not resolve the issue. I suppose it's because I'm comfortable in that industry and at this point, I'm mostly looking for comfort.

The systems and processes are an entire different problem. What you said did make me think for a minute. I think this needs to start with me, what my end plan is, and what I want to make out of it.

I don't want to work for my business my entire life. I don't want to be a consultant. I want a company that is self-sufficient without my presence. One which I can later sell.

Good points Peter!

Thanks
1 reply

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Peter Lessard

9 years ago

Well you are way ahead of the curve. Many people NEVER ask themselves the bigger picture questions that you are struggling with now so I have no doubt you will get where you want.

Funny is that most people never get where they want because they never bother to figure out where that is lol

Originally Posted by shadow92

You're right Peter. There is a disconnect. I know it will not resolve the issue. I suppose it's because I'm comfortable in that industry and at this point, I'm mostly looking for comfort.

The systems and processes are an entire different problem. What you said did make me think for a minute. I think this needs to start with me, what my end plan is, and what I want to make out of it.

I don't want to work for my business my entire life. I don't want to be a consultant. I want a company that is self-sufficient without my presence. One which I can later sell.

Good points Peter!

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1 reply

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Peter Lessard

Well you are way ahead of the curve. Many people NEVER ask themselves the bigger picture questions that you are struggling with now so I have no doubt you will get where you want.

Funny is that most people never get where they want because they never bother to figure out where that is lol

I got into this industry because I liked building websites, and I knew how to rank them well. I wanted to help the little guys because there are so many crooks out there that don't produce shit for results.

I never thought in a million years I would actually have problems because I can't process the money coming in. Seriously...last month was spent taking care of of my payment processes because my merchant closed our account down. We are processing too much $$ and are considered a "high risk" client because of our service type.

This entire process has been a roller coaster and I have loved every moment of it. I just have to keep learning and not let my inexperience ruin what I've worked for.

I truly appreciate your words of advice!

[ 1 ] Thanks

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ewenmack

9 years ago

A couple of decades ago when I was working as an employee
for a orchard contractor, he was having the same issues.

3 employees helping him.

Reliant on 2 or 3 big clients.

Worked the same jobs as the employees by day
and night organizing the next days work and
doing paper work.

I remember thd day at work he was confiding with me
how frustrated he was.

I said to him, "Merv, do you really want to get out of this mess?"

He stared at me and it was like he surreended when he said "yes".

I said "I want you to read a book. I 'll bring it to work tomorrow".

18 months later he tripled the size of the business
while keeping his expenses the same per employee, worked less in the business,
quit smoking, bought a holiday home on the lake shore.

That book was the E Myth.

If you are serious as Merv was, then there's your answer.

Best,
Doctor E. Vile

[ 5 ] Thanks
1 reply

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

A couple of decades ago when I was working as an employee
for a orchard contractor, he was having the same issues.

3 employees helping him.

Reliant on 2 or 3 big clients.

Worked the same jobs as the employees by day
and night organizing the next days work and
doing paper work.

I remember thd day at work he was confiding with me
how frustrated he was.

I said to him, "Merv, do you really want to get out of this mess?"

He stared at me and it was like he surrounded when he said "yes".

I said "I want you to read a book. I 'll bring it to work tomorrow".

18 months later he tripled the size of the size of the business
while keeping his expenses the same per employee, worked less in the business,
quit smoking, bought a holiday home on the lake shore.

That book was the E Myth.

If you are serious as Merv was, then there's your answer.

Best,
Doctor E. Vile

I'll order it tomorrow. Maybe more books are in my future

Thanks

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rossle

9 years ago

"I don't have anyone for calling. I'm decent at it but not good enough to pay and train someone on the subject. This is definitely my weak spot. So do I dedicate myself to calling every day for a couple hours to begin the learning process? or hire a trainer to train my VA?"

Would you be up for a conversation about the benefits of offshore outbound telesales? Highly trained sales staff ready to start your campaign, dedicated campaign managers and very low rates.

Thanks
2 replies

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ewenmack

9 years ago

Originally Posted by rossle

Would you be up for a conversation about the benefits of offshore outbound telesales? Highly trained sales staff ready to start your campaign, dedicated campaign managers and very low rates.

He needs to get an understanding of the fundamentals of
a profitable business first, hence the book The E Myth.

Best,
Doctor E. Vile

[ 1 ] Thanks
1 reply

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shadow92 9 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

He needs to get an understanding of the fundamentals of
a profitable business first, hence the book The E Myth.

Best,
Doctor E. Vile

Is it this one?

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses...
- Thanks
- 1 reply
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- ewenmack 9 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by shadow92
  
  Is it this one?
  
  The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It: Michael E. Gerber: 9780887307287: Amazon.com: Books
  
  That's a later version of the book I gave to Merv.
  
  Still good.
  
  Best,
  Doctor E. Vile
  
  Thanks
  
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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by rossle

"I don't have anyone for calling. I'm decent at it but not good enough to pay and train someone on the subject. This is definitely my weak spot. So do I dedicate myself to calling every day for a couple hours to begin the learning process? or hire a trainer to train my VA?"

Would you be up for a conversation about the benefits of offshore outbound telesales? Highly trained sales staff ready to start your campaign, dedicated campaign managers and very low rates.

Honestly no. My whole point behind this thread is I want to build a company not outsource it. If I could fire my outsources tomorrow I would, but I can't because I need to replace them with my own employees first.

I appreciate the offer though

Thanks
1 reply

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BigFrank

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by shadow92

I need to replace them with my own employees first.

Oh, my. I'd give that some serious thought. One of the advantages of outsourcing is you can have a stable of people at your disposal and whittle the group down as you ascertain which provide the best ROI for you. You can instantly replace those that are not working out.

Employees are another matter altogether. After years of going that route without ever finding anyone that was worth a lick, I realized that I was happier having a much smaller business that I controlled myself with almost no dependence on others. The expense of carrying employees goes way beyond their salaries. A good outsource is a gift from heaven. Treat them well and you can keep them for years. That said, never rely on just one or two. Have a few and spread the work around. Depending on a few is no less precarious than your business being dependent on a few large clients. Clients can disappear in a flash for myriad reasons. If they are in a similar niche that suffers a downturn, you could lose them all at once. That's why a little diversity in what you offer is also beneficial.

You may have it a lot better than you think. Striving for a perfect scenario is an exercise in futility. If I were you I'd spend the rest of this year seriously trying to evaluate your situation. Your search for a solution to your specific set of circumstances is probably going to take a bit longer than you would like.

I guess it all comes down to how much you actually want to 'work,' You have indicated that you want a business that will run like a well-oiled machine, without you being on the premises. Isn't that at some level what we all want? Good luck with that.

Your complaint is not what we usually hear. I'd suggest doing some financial calculation to try to determine which things that you offer bring you the best financial return for the time, energy and resources expended and start to eliminate the obvious drain of time and resources that results in the least profit. I'd be willing to bet that if you start from the bottom and work your way up, it no time at all you will reach that sweet spot and your operation will be far more attractive to you, both financially and psychologically.

And definitely rethink that employee thing. You don't know what misery is until you are saddled with one or two that make your life a living hell and trying to get rid of them, depending on the circumstances can be a nightmare.

Just my 2¢. Good luck.

Cheers. - Frank

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1 reply

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Awesome responses, and glad you didn't take offense. Some people come on here, desperately asking for help but what they really want is for people to reinforce their previous opinions. LOL.

I understand your problem with processing. It's a problem I've had numerous times in the past. You're about to set yourself up for more disappointment with the ACH transactions too, they have limits and they're usually less than what your merchant account would have. What you need to do, is look into printing checks yourself. You save even more money, funds are available faster, and you have no limits. It is by far the lowest risk, and my preferred method. I've been promoting printing your own checks for years now. You do that, you'll have better cash flow and no worry about how much the processing company is going to take out in monthly fees, transactional, and batch processing fees, etc.

I've looked into it. Do you make your clients sign some type of authorization form like with CC processing? I think from a legal standpoint you need a written agreement to access ones account on a monthly basis. I have read about a couple different softwares for this, which do you use? And a Laser printer is preferred, correct?

I hope you remain active on this forum because I bet you have a lot that you can contribute. In fact, things that you're saying remind me of me. What you're going through is exactly what I've been through.

I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means. But yes, I have worked diligently where others have given up. I do plan to continue to be active on the forum, when I'm able to of course. I'm sure I can share some of my experiences for those just starting out.

So before you landed the big clients, everything you did was working just fine. You switched gears and stopped working on marketing because you were working on the delivery of the work, is that correct?

Correct

I think you're at that awkward growth stage where you get sales, then you deliver the work, start marketing again but since you don't have the advantage of compound marketing for the time you were working on those projects sales slack a little bit until you get the machine going again. Is that right? If so, I know how you feel, and what you really need is another hand to help. I was tired of that happening to me a lot so I pushed and pushed, had tons of campaigns going at once, kept selling, selling, and selling until I had 100k/mo in sales then realized, holy shit, I have a lot of work to do and my existing team couldn't handle it.

This pretty much sums up my day to day. We're overloaded. It's funny you say that because it's exactly what I do. Typically it's in 2 week intervals. I'll hammer out and get the sales, catch up on the projects...again...and again... and again...But when I landed these larger accounts, that 2 weeks turned into 4 months of NOTHING besides working on the accounts.

The biggest problem I had and still do have, is I'm a cheap *******. I like to work, I like to save money, make money, and not spend money I don't have to. I was poor before, so maybe that contributes to me not wanting to spend money but it is absolutely necessary if you want to grow, build AND KEEP your reputation. You need additional help.

Me as well. My first days of business were spent in a library hijacking their wifi and stealing their info usa leads. You couldn't print the lists directly so I would screenshot, page by page. And print off the lists. Once I had about 50 pages or so, I would leave...go home to my tiny ass appt. and sit on my hard wooden kitchen chair and call until I about had an ulcer on my ass.

My point is...I was poor too. And it contributes to my apprehensiveness on letting money go. But I understand it's part of it. Entrepreneurship is risk, and investment.

I understand why you want to niche down, but don't. You really don't want to do that at this point. Those that niche down usually do it at the beginning, they don't have your level of growth and success. You have to switch your thinking, what you offer that lawyer that you feel you're inexperienced in his industry, you need to realize that you know a lot. You know how to run PPC, perform SEO.. keywords are keywords and profit is profit. That's what matters. Once you have a client in an area you're unfamiliar with, start getting more in that industry. It's a perfect opportunity to get familiar.

I understand what you're saying. Maybe I'll put the idea on hold for a while.

The 18 hours a day. I get that too. I still do 18 hours a day, I've recently done a 20 hour day, 4 hours of sleep followed by another 16 hour day. It's not a badge of honor or something to be proud of, but sometimes it is necessary. You have to do what you have to do to get by, survive, and thrive. I have leaks in productivity that I'm trying to patch up. I know that my 18 hour days aren't always as productive as some of my 8 hour days. Just to examine your productivity, your tasks and what you accomplish, I recommend using Toggl and see exactly where your time goes. Log everything, from bathroom breaks, to smoking, eating, everything you do. Checking facebook, email, etc. log it. Do it for a week and examine... continue to do it and you will find leaks in your productivity. Maybe we can get you working 14 hours a day instead of 18.

That would actually be interesting. I'm sure I'll be disappointed at the end of the week though lol. It's a good tool to use though. Is there anything out there that monitors browser activity and time spent on what websites?

I would specifically like to track not only my activity, but my employees as well. I know we all get caught surfing to random sites etc. These are all things that have to stop. Especially since we're running into productivity issues.

As for the emailing issue. I think you're losing out on time and effectiveness. Setting up those different hosts and domains, to send out server side is going to kill your deliverability and open rates. Think about the leads you've gotten from it right now, and multiply it by 5... maybe even 10. That's what you're missing out on.

You're supposed to have an opt in list with mail chimp, but I don't. You just have to be careful and remove the emails that are part of a feedback loop. Seriously, do it. Get it. It's a bit of automation that you can have. Spend a few hours developing campaigns, and you have an email campaign going out to the list of emails you harvested and it's fully automated after that little time invested. I like to create a sequence of 8 emails before giving a couple week break, sometimes I will do a sequence of 12. That way I can set up those emails, schedule, and not have to mess with it again for 3 months.

Well that's quite sad, and exciting at the same time. I will for sure give mailchimp a try. Because it is a ROYAL pain keeping track of 10 different domains, on 10 different hosts, and all those accounts info each time I load up a batch of emails (it's seriously a full time job alone keeping track of everything)

What do you mean by this? "You just have to be careful and remove the emails that are part of a feedback loop." - If they request to not email them again then remove them? like a verbal opt out?

So you can just scrape the emails in MR and upload the excel sheet to mailchimp? If so, I just found my new best friend.

Your outsourcing.... and your assistant and coder... what is everybody's job? Who does what, what do you do exactly? You need to expand your team even if it is overseas, but to help you decide which area you need help in, I need to know a bit more.

Alright....here you go....

Let's start with me. I overlook all of the projects. I communicate between the clients and the outsourcers. I also delegate tasks to my coder and assistant, ones they can handle. Now that sounds very simple, yes. But for example...one of my clients is a solar product provider. They have their own line of products they sell internationally. They have a total of 600+ individual products. Each product needs an image thumbnail for the website, and a complete description and spec sheet.

It sounds like you have a grasp on this industry so I'm going to assume you understand what I mean when I say the client puts the ball in your hands. Content, pictures, information about the company they don't have any of it but expect you to figure it out.

With my larger accounts, this means that I'm traveling all over the map since none of my clients are local. In fact, I just got back from shooting pictures of the 600+ products, and writing a description for each product with their manager. I also met their entire office team and their CEO and marketing director. We outlined their entire offline marketing plan and talked about how we were going to be branding their name. We also setup and adjusted their budgets to reflect the image they want to portray.

I know this info may seem irrelevant but it isn't because this is what I do now. As I'm sure you know a $15k/mo client is MUCH different than a $1k/mo client. I think this is something many people fail to realize. Not because of their ignorance, but because they have not experienced it before. So to answer your question, I'm really all over the place. Being in this industry, I am given the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world which helps. But it's still tricky to run operations back home when I'm not there. It just makes everything harder. I think this is one of my major pains. I don't have anyone to overlook the day to day operation while I'm traveling.

Let's move on to my lovely assistant. Shes amazing. I don't know what I would do without her. She pretty much fills in the loose gaps. She calls clients to setup phone conferences with me for our monthly goal setting and report updates, she controls the central email account and makes sure the right files get to the right people. Typically once a project has commenced, I will give her a copy of the plan of action, 9/10 there will be information required from the client, she is the one that deals with this. Getting a text document of all the information I need.

We redesign a lot of websites. She is usually on the phone with the domain registrars fighting with them to get the domains in our name. She also deals with previous web designers, hosting companies etc. Once I close the deal, she typically handles everything and gets me all setup to do what I do best. Design.

She's my go-to girl for MANY things because she know how this business works. She knows enough that she can typically answer all of my client's basic questions so I don't have to talk to them...lol

On to my coder. This guy is a little odd, but he's an absolute genius when it comes to HTML/CSS. When clients request revisions to the website, all correspondence goes to him. He has his boundaries on what he's allowed to do without first consulting me or Josh (will talk about josh in a moment). Reason being SEO purposes. But most clients just want to add pictures, change contact info, little shit. So he's my guy for that.

But he's also my guy for well...coding issues. We don't build websites with themes. well....we do but we don't. I'll usually use a theme to show the client a visual, once they outline their likes and dislikes then I will outline MY likes and dislikes. I manually print the theme on paper and scribble all over it to 'build' the unique website. Then I pretty much hand my coder that paper and he works his magic. I design all the graphics required for the new unique theme and he codes it all in.

Now on to my "outsourcers"

I put that in quote because they're actually a group of dam good SEO guys. It just so happens that I grew up with the CEO. They ONLY do SEO. That's what they handle. Local and Organic, they handle everything. For on-site optimization they will make a que sheet with everything that needs to be done to the website (I don't let anyone touch my client sites outside of my internal payroll) We then make those on-site changes (simple Ctrl+C). They handle the rest. Everything, we don't touch it from there. They sent me the reports, and I forward them to my clients each month.

NOW....something I left out. I own a very large network of high quality, unique content, high PR blogs in various industries. One is medical/dental/ , one is Contracting etc. I began building this a while ago, before I ever started my business. Back when I was using them to promote my own sites and affiliate products.
This is my secret recipe, my bread and butter. It even makes me nervous to talk ABOUT it on a public board. This is the reason I'm able to rank ANY site, and practically guarantee a top spot in the search engines. One little link in my network and the juice passed through will put your site wherever you want it. It's a very very large network and has cost me a lot of time and money to build. I have done everything 100% correct and it's clean as a whistle. This is a whole other topic though.

The reason I bring it up is because I have contracts through Josh (CEO of my outsourcers) They keep the network fresh with unique content each month. It costs me a pretty penny to do this but that's because the network is so large. The contracts we have strictly prohibit them from using them networks for ANYTHING or ANYONE except clients or personell of MY entity. It outlines the Non-Disclosures of the agreement and strictly prohibits any one from that team to even speak about it to anyone outside of the immediate persons working on the network. (saying this so you don't think i'm an idiot and having some randoms handle my site with no contracts)

I'm bringing this up because I want you to understand HOW my company works and what EVERYONE'S job is. You should understand that my outsourcers are practically part of my company.

As for basecamp... that's pretty much the industry standard it seems. I hate it. You spend too much time moving around the platform than you do managing projects. I recommend you trying out TeamworkPM... at least give it a trial and see if that is easier for you.

I'll give it a try, because I can't seem to figure basecamp out. I'm just getting to the point where I'm able to message clients LOL

This is the kind of topic this forum needs.. It's been a while since there was a real discussion.

You're going to be fine. Growing pains, experience gathering, that's all it is.

Well let's make it a good thread

Thanks
1 reply

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by shadow92

I've looked into it. Do you make your clients sign some type of authorization form like with CC processing? I think from a legal standpoint you need a written agreement to access ones account on a monthly basis. I have read about a couple different softwares for this, which do you use? And a Laser printer is preferred, correct?

I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means. But yes, I have worked diligently where others have given up. I do plan to continue to be active on the forum, when I'm able to of course. I'm sure I can share some of my experiences for those just starting out.

Correct

This pretty much sums up my day to day. We're overloaded. It's funny you say that because it's exactly what I do. Typically it's in 2 week intervals. I'll hammer out and get the sales, catch up on the projects...again...and again... and again...But when I landed these larger accounts, that 2 weeks turned into 4 months of NOTHING besides working on the accounts.

Me as well. My first days of business were spent in a library hijacking their wifi and stealing their info usa leads. You couldn't print the lists directly so I would screenshot, page by page. And print off the lists. Once I had about 50 pages or so, I would leave...go home to my tiny ass appt. and sit on my hard wooden kitchen chair and call until I about had an ulcer on my ass.

My point is...I was poor too. And it contributes to my apprehensiveness on letting money go. But I understand it's part of it. Entrepreneurship is risk, and investment.

I understand what you're saying. Maybe I'll put the idea on hold for a while.

That would actually be interesting. I'm sure I'll be disappointed at the end of the week though lol. It's a good tool to use though. Is there anything out there that monitors browser activity and time spent on what websites?

I would specifically like to track not only my activity, but my employees as well. I know we all get caught surfing to random sites etc. These are all things that have to stop. Especially since we're running into productivity issues.

Well that's quite sad, and exciting at the same time. I will for sure give mailchimp a try. Because it is a ROYAL pain keeping track of 10 different domains, on 10 different hosts, and all those accounts info each time I load up a batch of emails (it's seriously a full time job alone keeping track of everything)

What do you mean by this? "You just have to be careful and remove the emails that are part of a feedback loop." - If they request to not email them again then remove them? like a verbal opt out?

So you can just scrape the emails in MR and upload the excel sheet to mailchimp? If so, I just found my new best friend.

Alright....here you go....

Let's start with me. I overlook all of the projects. I communicate between the clients and the outsourcers. I also delegate tasks to my coder and assistant, ones they can handle. Now that sounds very simple, yes. But for example...one of my clients is a solar product provider. They have their own line of products they sell internationally. They have a total of 600+ individual products. Each product needs an image thumbnail for the website, and a complete description and spec sheet.

It sounds like you have a grasp on this industry so I'm going to assume you understand what I mean when I say the client puts the ball in your hands. Content, pictures, information about the company they don't have any of it but expect you to figure it out.

With my larger accounts, this means that I'm traveling all over the map since none of my clients are local. In fact, I just got back from shooting pictures of the 600+ products, and writing a description for each product with their manager. I also met their entire office team and their CEO and marketing director. We outlined their entire offline marketing plan and talked about how we were going to be branding their name. We also setup and adjusted their budgets to reflect the image they want to portray.

I know this info may seem irrelevant but it isn't because this is what I do now. As I'm sure you know a $15k/mo client is MUCH different than a $1k/mo client. I think this is something many people fail to realize. Not because of their ignorance, but because they have not experienced it before. So to answer your question, I'm really all over the place. Being in this industry, I am given the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world which helps. But it's still tricky to run operations back home when I'm not there. It just makes everything harder. I think this is one of my major pains. I don't have anyone to overlook the day to day operation while I'm traveling.

Let's move on to my lovely assistant. Shes amazing. I don't know what I would do without her. She pretty much fills in the loose gaps. She calls clients to setup phone conferences with me for our monthly goal setting and report updates, she controls the central email account and makes sure the right files get to the right people. Typically once a project has commenced, I will give her a copy of the plan of action, 9/10 there will be information required from the client, she is the one that deals with this. Getting a text document of all the information I need.

We redesign a lot of websites. She is usually on the phone with the domain registrars fighting with them to get the domains in our name. She also deals with previous web designers, hosting companies etc. Once I close the deal, she typically handles everything and gets me all setup to do what I do best. Design.

She's my go-to girl for MANY things because she know how this business works. She knows enough that she can typically answer all of my client's basic questions so I don't have to talk to them...lol

On to my coder. This guy is a little odd, but he's an absolute genius when it comes to HTML/CSS. When clients request revisions to the website, all correspondence goes to him. He has his boundaries on what he's allowed to do without first consulting me or Josh (will talk about josh in a moment). Reason being SEO purposes. But most clients just want to add pictures, change contact info, little shit. So he's my guy for that.

But he's also my guy for well...coding issues. We don't build websites with themes. well....we do but we don't. I'll usually use a theme to show the client a visual, once they outline their likes and dislikes then I will outline MY likes and dislikes. I manually print the theme on paper and scribble all over it to 'build' the unique website. Then I pretty much hand my coder that paper and he works his magic. I design all the graphics required for the new unique theme and he codes it all in.

Now on to my "outsourcers"

I put that in quote because they're actually a group of dam good SEO guys. It just so happens that I grew up with the CEO. They ONLY do SEO. That's what they handle. Local and Organic, they handle everything. For on-site optimization they will make a que sheet with everything that needs to be done to the website (I don't let anyone touch my client sites outside of my internal payroll) We then make those on-site changes (simple Ctrl+C). They handle the rest. Everything, we don't touch it from there. They sent me the reports, and I forward them to my clients each month.

NOW....something I left out. I own a very large network of high quality, unique content, high PR blogs in various industries. One is medical/dental/ , one is Contracting etc. I began building this a while ago, before I ever started my business. Back when I was using them to promote my own sites and affiliate products.
This is my secret recipe, my bread and butter. It even makes me nervous to talk ABOUT it on a public board. This is the reason I'm able to rank ANY site, and practically guarantee a top spot in the search engines. One little link in my network and the juice passed through will put your site wherever you want it. It's a very very large network and has cost me a lot of time and money to build. I have done everything 100% correct and it's clean as a whistle. This is a whole other topic though.

The reason I bring it up is because I have contracts through Josh (CEO of my outsourcers) They keep the network fresh with unique content each month. It costs me a pretty penny to do this but that's because the network is so large. The contracts we have strictly prohibit them from using them networks for ANYTHING or ANYONE except clients or personell of MY entity. It outlines the Non-Disclosures of the agreement and strictly prohibits any one from that team to even speak about it to anyone outside of the immediate persons working on the network. (saying this so you don't think i'm an idiot and having some randoms handle my site with no contracts)

I'm bringing this up because I want you to understand HOW my company works and what EVERYONE'S job is. You should understand that my outsourcers are practically part of my company.

I'll give it a try, because I can't seem to figure basecamp out. I'm just getting to the point where I'm able to message clients LOL

Well let's make it a good thread

You just need authorization, whether it is an authorization form, via email, or via phone. This is more of a civil matter than a bank requirement. I don't even bother with putting it in writing unless it's a high enough amount to justify. As for software, I've always used the EZcheck printing software. You just put "This check is authorized by your depositor, no signature required" in the signature line. Yeah, you want to use a laser printer, though the readers at most banks are sophisticated enough to read almost any printed check but I would stick with a laser printer.

From what I can see, you're too involved in the work and that's going to be hard to let go. That's the reason I have had my fair share of pissed of clients LOL. You need to replace yourself, and it's always easier said than done. I still have my hands in many projects, doing everything from design, to coding, to SEO, etc. There's a few little things you can implement from what I've already suggested and they will have an impact for you. The biggest impact you will have is letting go a little bit.

I understand having big projects and dedicating time and resources to complete them, and it's easy to think that having more sales while you're working on any project will fix problems but it won't. The problem is you're stretched too thin, you're working on every project. It seems that you're the one that gets the sales. You're a designer, a project manager, HR, sales rep, etc. Maybe for lower end clients like the 3K website for the attorney you SHOULD use some themes. I'd recommend finding an additional outsourcer that can work on projects start to finish. You either need someone working on marketing and sales full time, or you need someone to handle design.

With Toggl, you just have to log everything you do. You will certainly waste a little bit of time by having to log everything but in the end it is going to help you and your productivity. It's necessary. Do it and you'll be able to see exactly where time is going and how much it adds up when doing certain things that offer no value to the company.

A lot of people rehash a bunch of stuff speaking in cliches like work on your business not in your business, you created a job not a business, etc. but ignore those comments. Everybody works in their business at one point, and no you created jobs for people other than yourself, these are just one liners that stick with people from popular books. Sometimes you have to bust your ass in order to be where you want to be. It doesn't happen by watching at a distance. It also doesn't happen by outsourcing everything, there's no such thing as outsourcing everything.

About the mailchimp and FBL, if I don't PM you with the info later, remind me. That's one of the things I don't want to "give away" to everybody reading lol. It will for sure be a time saver for you, and the results will likely be a lot better than you currently have.

I also deal with clients across the country, not many locally. I would never, ever travel to shoot 600 products. I would ask for the product list and get stock photos or I would pay a starving photographer $300 from their area to go and take the pictures. This is a big area that you're wasting time in, you can't be everything to everyone. This is something you delegate. There's no reason to do this yourself. As for descriptions, couldn't your assistant do that? Or maybe you need another assistant?

It sounds like you have a great assistant who understands the business, what you want, etc. Why is she still just an assistant?

What you're doing wrong:

- Performing a lot of the work yourself
- Traveling to clients
- Handling all the project management
- Handling all client interaction
- Doing monthly report/phone conferences yourself.

It doesn't seem like much but this is killing you man. Just generating each report then having to stay on the phone forever is sucking your life away.

You're doing work yourself, which is okay. I get it, I still do it, but you're doing TOO much yourself. You're still stuck in the infant mindset phase of the business. What I mean by that, is you're still valuing money over time but it is clear that your time is more valuable and can lead to more money. What do you have more of right now, time, or money?

Do you have an office or are all these people working remotely? Your coder, assistant?

I think it is time for you to add on to your team. Some people will try to get you to outsource this and that and blah blah blah but the truth is, people here, employees, have a lot of advantages to you that outsourcers don't.

It sounds like your assistant doesn't need to be an assistant anymore. I think you can train her to handle more important aspects of your business, and have her train a new assistant. The new assistant will learn from her, you don't have to worry about training the new one. Your existing assistant could likely handle client communication and requests. Project management, and probably the generation of reports and monthly report conferences.

That addition to your team, and promotion is going to change your life, at least for a little bit. I would still recommend having another coder and designer, someone that can work on projects start to finish. Maybe that person can handle lower end stuff and then later on help out with bigger projects. That person can be an outsourcer.

So with the addition of a new assistant, trained by your existing assistant and promoting the existing assistant to handle other areas of the business, you're allowing yourself to have time building your business better, running different marketing campaigns while work is being completed. This allows for better cash flow, consistent sales, and a happy you and happy team. The addition of another website designer, gives you a higher cap for what you can handle.

This will give you structure in the areas you're not a part of. You still need to develop a system for how you will handle your marketing and sales now that you have all this extra time, and you'll eventually want to hire someone to make the sales but for now, the new assistant and promotion of your existing assistant will help you a lot.

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

You just need authorization, whether it is an authorization form, via email, or via phone. This is more of a civil matter than a bank requirement. I don't even bother with putting it in writing unless it's a high enough amount to justify. As for software, I've always used the EZcheck printing software. You just put "This check is authorized by your depositor, no signature required" in the signature line. Yeah, you want to use a laser printer, though the readers at most banks are sophisticated enough to read almost any printed check but I would stick with a laser printer.

From what I can see, you're too involved in the work and that's going to be hard to let go. That's the reason I have had my fair share of pissed of clients LOL. You need to replace yourself, and it's always easier said than done. I still have my hands in many projects, doing everything from design, to coding, to SEO, etc. There's a few little things you can implement from what I've already suggested and they will have an impact for you. The biggest impact you will have is letting go a little bit.

I understand having big projects and dedicating time and resources to complete them, and it's easy to think that having more sales while you're working on any project will fix problems but it won't. The problem is you're stretched too thin, you're working on every project. It seems that you're the one that gets the sales. You're a designer, a project manager, HR, sales rep, etc. Maybe for lower end clients like the 3K website for the attorney you SHOULD use some themes. I'd recommend finding an additional outsourcer that can work on projects start to finish. You either need someone working on marketing and sales full time, or you need someone to handle design.

With Toggl, you just have to log everything you do. You will certainly waste a little bit of time by having to log everything but in the end it is going to help you and your productivity. It's necessary. Do it and you'll be able to see exactly where time is going and how much it adds up when doing certain things that offer no value to the company.

A lot of people rehash a bunch of stuff speaking in cliches like work on your business not in your business, you created a job not a business, etc. but ignore those comments. Everybody works in their business at one point, and no you created jobs for people other than yourself, these are just one liners that stick with people from popular books. Sometimes you have to bust your ass in order to be where you want to be. It doesn't happen by watching at a distance. It also doesn't happen by outsourcing everything, there's no such thing as outsourcing everything.

About the mailchimp and FBL, if I don't PM you with the info later, remind me. That's one of the things I don't want to "give away" to everybody reading lol. It will for sure be a time saver for you, and the results will likely be a lot better than you currently have.

I also deal with clients across the country, not many locally. I would never, ever travel to shoot 600 products. I would ask for the product list and get stock photos or I would pay a starving photographer $300 from their area to go and take the pictures. This is a big area that you're wasting time in, you can't be everything to everyone. This is something you delegate. There's no reason to do this yourself. As for descriptions, couldn't your assistant do that? Or maybe you need another assistant?

It sounds like you have a great assistant who understands the business, what you want, etc. Why is she still just an assistant?

What you're doing wrong:

- Performing a lot of the work yourself
- Traveling to clients
- Handling all the project management
- Handling all client interaction
- Doing monthly report/phone conferences yourself.

It doesn't seem like much but this is killing you man. Just generating each report then having to stay on the phone forever is sucking your life away.

You're doing work yourself, which is okay. I get it, I still do it, but you're doing TOO much yourself. You're still stuck in the infant mindset phase of the business. What I mean by that, is you're still valuing money over time but it is clear that your time is more valuable and can lead to more money. What do you have more of right now, time, or money?

Do you have an office or are all these people working remotely? Your coder, assistant?

I think it is time for you to add on to your team. Some people will try to get you to outsource this and that and blah blah blah but the truth is, people here, employees, have a lot of advantages to you that outsourcers don't.

It sounds like your assistant doesn't need to be an assistant anymore. I think you can train her to handle more important aspects of your business, and have her train a new assistant. The new assistant will learn from her, you don't have to worry about training the new one. Your existing assistant could likely handle client communication and requests. Project management, and probably the generation of reports and monthly report conferences.

That addition to your team, and promotion is going to change your life, at least for a little bit. I would still recommend having another coder and designer, someone that can work on projects start to finish. Maybe that person can handle lower end stuff and then later on help out with bigger projects. That person can be an outsourcer.

So with the addition of a new assistant, trained by your existing assistant and promoting the existing assistant to handle other areas of the business, you're allowing yourself to have time building your business better, running different marketing campaigns while work is being completed. This allows for better cash flow, consistent sales, and a happy you and happy team. The addition of another website designer, gives you a higher cap for what you can handle.

This will give you structure in the areas you're not a part of. You still need to develop a system for how you will handle your marketing and sales now that you have all this extra time, and you'll eventually want to hire someone to make the sales but for now, the new assistant and promotion of your existing assistant will help you a lot.

You're golden brother. I'm printing each reply to this thread.

I'm spending some time with my family for a bit today. I will for sure get you a response later. As well as my response to others who posted earlier.hopefully this thread can help and inspire others as well.

Understand how much respect I have for you for your advice.

Thank you

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bizgrower

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

You just need authorization, whether it is an authorization form, via email, or via phone. This is more of a civil matter than a bank requirement. I don't even bother with putting it in writing unless it's a high enough amount to justify. As for software, I've always used the EZcheck printing software. You just put "This check is authorized by your depositor, no signature required" in the signature line. Yeah, you want to use a laser printer, though the readers at most banks are sophisticated enough to read almost any printed check but I would stick with a laser printer.

From what I can see, you're too involved in the work and that's going to be hard to let go. That's the reason I have had my fair share of pissed of clients LOL. You need to replace yourself, and it's always easier said than done. I still have my hands in many projects, doing everything from design, to coding, to SEO, etc. There's a few little things you can implement from what I've already suggested and they will have an impact for you. The biggest impact you will have is letting go a little bit.

I understand having big projects and dedicating time and resources to complete them, and it's easy to think that having more sales while you're working on any project will fix problems but it won't. The problem is you're stretched too thin, you're working on every project. It seems that you're the one that gets the sales. You're a designer, a project manager, HR, sales rep, etc. Maybe for lower end clients like the 3K website for the attorney you SHOULD use some themes. I'd recommend finding an additional outsourcer that can work on projects start to finish. You either need someone working on marketing and sales full time, or you need someone to handle design.

With Toggl, you just have to log everything you do. You will certainly waste a little bit of time by having to log everything but in the end it is going to help you and your productivity. It's necessary. Do it and you'll be able to see exactly where time is going and how much it adds up when doing certain things that offer no value to the company.

A lot of people rehash a bunch of stuff speaking in cliches like work on your business not in your business, you created a job not a business, etc. but ignore those comments. Everybody works in their business at one point, and no you created jobs for people other than yourself, these are just one liners that stick with people from popular books. Sometimes you have to bust your ass in order to be where you want to be. It doesn't happen by watching at a distance. It also doesn't happen by outsourcing everything, there's no such thing as outsourcing everything.

About the mailchimp and FBL, if I don't PM you with the info later, remind me. That's one of the things I don't want to "give away" to everybody reading lol. It will for sure be a time saver for you, and the results will likely be a lot better than you currently have.

I also deal with clients across the country, not many locally. I would never, ever travel to shoot 600 products. I would ask for the product list and get stock photos or I would pay a starving photographer $300 from their area to go and take the pictures. This is a big area that you're wasting time in, you can't be everything to everyone. This is something you delegate. There's no reason to do this yourself. As for descriptions, couldn't your assistant do that? Or maybe you need another assistant?

It sounds like you have a great assistant who understands the business, what you want, etc. Why is she still just an assistant?

What you're doing wrong:

- Performing a lot of the work yourself
- Traveling to clients
- Handling all the project management
- Handling all client interaction
- Doing monthly report/phone conferences yourself.

It doesn't seem like much but this is killing you man. Just generating each report then having to stay on the phone forever is sucking your life away.

You're doing work yourself, which is okay. I get it, I still do it, but you're doing TOO much yourself. You're still stuck in the infant mindset phase of the business. What I mean by that, is you're still valuing money over time but it is clear that your time is more valuable and can lead to more money. What do you have more of right now, time, or money?

Do you have an office or are all these people working remotely? Your coder, assistant?

I think it is time for you to add on to your team. Some people will try to get you to outsource this and that and blah blah blah but the truth is, people here, employees, have a lot of advantages to you that outsourcers don't.

It sounds like your assistant doesn't need to be an assistant anymore. I think you can train her to handle more important aspects of your business, and have her train a new assistant. The new assistant will learn from her, you don't have to worry about training the new one. Your existing assistant could likely handle client communication and requests. Project management, and probably the generation of reports and monthly report conferences.

That addition to your team, and promotion is going to change your life, at least for a little bit. I would still recommend having another coder and designer, someone that can work on projects start to finish. Maybe that person can handle lower end stuff and then later on help out with bigger projects. That person can be an outsourcer.

So with the addition of a new assistant, trained by your existing assistant and promoting the existing assistant to handle other areas of the business, you're allowing yourself to have time building your business better, running different marketing campaigns while work is being completed. This allows for better cash flow, consistent sales, and a happy you and happy team. The addition of another website designer, gives you a higher cap for what you can handle.

This will give you structure in the areas you're not a part of. You still need to develop a system for how you will handle your marketing and sales now that you have all this extra time, and you'll eventually want to hire someone to make the sales but for now, the new assistant and promotion of your existing assistant will help you a lot.

Good thread.

I was thinking: get a handle on cash flow, the right bank(s), consistent deal flow and handling of the work, just building new sites instead of reworking old and dealing with old webmasters.

In Nameless' reply, the part I bolded - getting an internal operations manager (promoting the lovely assistant?) and part time clerical help.

Then OP focusing on marketing, revenue and profits - whatever the most valuable uses of his time.

Dan

Thanks

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by bizgrower

You're actually in a good spot because you can and will move to the next level.

Don't think, just answer quickly:

What are the top ten things you want to resolve now?
Of those ten, which ones do you need to act upon right away?

1. I want to setup a process that will enable me to consistently fill my sales pipeline.

2. I want documentation of each person's activity each day. I also want to introduce daily goal setting each AM along with the daily action outlines. This way we can measure our immediate results to see if we hit the production goal for that day.

3. I want to be out of the equation more. I have 90% of the weight on my shoulders

4. I want my assistant to become more involved in the projects instead of clerical work.

5. I want my coder to start taking some of the designing workload from me. He's capable but not at a level I'm comfortable with yet.

6. I want the litter of money sitting in my business account to be used to further grow this company.

7. I want a DAILY batch emailing process started. Every day I want at least 1k emails inboxed

8. I want a DAILY calling session. At this point I don't really even care how long. Hell a couple hours of call time would satisfy me. I want SOMETHING though.

9. I want to change my company image. We are too mainstream. I want to be branded as an EXPERT in something. I want an empire. I want to own every resource I use. SEO? no problem I have a network of websites that will blow any competition away. I can show you proof that I rank 50K search keywords on the first page. But let's not get too ahead of ourselves. First we need to get you a website. Let's start by looking through my library of 100+ themes personally designed and tested by my team of experts. These themes have already paid for themselves 20 times but you don't know that, so i'm going to charge you $5k...why? because I can PROVE that they work. I can show you numbers from my clients RIGHT NOW. - You see where I'm getting? I want to be branded as THE #1. (hence why I brought up focusing on one niche) This is not an immediate need, just a desire I have burning away at me. See... I don't care about how much money I make. I want to be #1. I want to be the best in something. And I know it's possible. Maybe not actually "be" but to reflect the image that I am. I want an empire.

10. I want to let go....seriously. I want to be able to let go and let my little birds fly. But I can't. I'm too anal. Every time I have tried it, I tore their work apart and did it over myself. I wouldn't keep doing this if my clients didn't say "WOW that's way better" after I did it. I understand though...I need to let go. I have to.

Originally Posted by BigFrank

Oh, my. I'd give that some serious thought. One of the advantages of outsourcing is you can have a stable of people at your disposal and whittle the group down as you ascertain which provide the best ROI for you. You can instantly replace those that are not working out.

Employees are another matter altogether. After years of going that route without ever finding anyone that was worth a lick, I realized that I was happier having a much smaller business that I controlled myself with almost no dependence on others. The expense of carrying employees goes way beyond their salaries. A good outsource is a gift from heaven. Treat them well and you can keep them for years. That said, never rely on just one or two. Have a few and spread the work around. Depending on a few is no less precarious than your business being dependent on a few large clients. Clients can disappear in a flash for myriad reasons. If they are in a similar niche that suffers a downturn, you could lose them all at once. That's why a little diversity in what you offer is also beneficial.

You may have it a lot better than you think. Striving for a perfect scenario is an exercise in futility. If I were you I'd spend the rest of this year seriously trying to evaluate your situation. Your search for a solution to your specific set of circumstances is probably going to take a bit longer than you would like.

I guess it all comes down to how much you actually want to 'work,' You have indicated that you want a business that will run like a well-oiled machine, without you being on the premises. Isn't that at some level what we all want? Good luck with that.

Your complaint is not what we usually hear. I'd suggest doing some financial calculation to try to determine which things that you offer bring you the best financial return for the time, energy and resources expended and start to eliminate the obvious drain of time and resources that results in the least profit. I'd be willing to bet that if you start from the bottom and work your way up, it no time at all you will reach that sweet spot and your operation will be far more attractive to you, both financially and psychologically.

And definitely rethink that employee thing. You don't know what misery is until you are saddled with one or two that make your life a living hell and trying to get rid of them, depending on the circumstances can be a nightmare.

Just my 2¢. Good luck.

Cheers. - Frank

Hey Frank,

First of all, thank you for your input. And you're right...Every single thing you said is true.

However in my particular situation, based on MY personal goals. I respectfully disagree with everything you said.

If you read my other posts you'll see what I'm after. I don't want a small business that's easy for me to manage. I don't want a stress free life. I know that's not going to happen. I know my OP sounds desperate, and I am. However It should be noted that I'm desperate to BUILD, not settle.

I want an empire. I want to be voiced as the best at what I do. I won't stop until I get there.

You're completely right about maintaining and managing good employees. They're a pain in the ass. But for me, they're necessary. Most outsourcers suck, I know you'd agree with that. Yes there's some good ones but most are terrible and don't deliver. I refuse to have my name poisoned because of that. I want to be able to culture and nourish my employees to design websites like I do. I have a high standard for our work and that won't change. If I took 10 outsourcers and had them try to copy the work we produce, all 10 of them would be lost as soon as they laid eyes on it.

I'm not saying this to brag, please don't misunderstand me. I'm saying this because I have got to this point because of my hard, quality work and high standards. This will never change. It's my vision.

I just honestly don't believe outsourcers could handle what I throw at them. I can't even begin to imagine trying to take on my larger accounts using all outsourcers. I barely trust the ones I use now and I'm great friends with the CEO, I grew up with him.

I guess I just want full control, and full responsibility of my employees. When shit hits the fan I want to blame myself. Not wonder what could have been.

Am I making sense?

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

You just need authorization, whether it is an authorization form, via email, or via phone. This is more of a civil matter than a bank requirement. I don't even bother with putting it in writing unless it's a high enough amount to justify. As for software, I've always used the EZcheck printing software. You just put "This check is authorized by your depositor, no signature required" in the signature line. Yeah, you want to use a laser printer, though the readers at most banks are sophisticated enough to read almost any printed check but I would stick with a laser printer.

Looks like a laser printer is on my shopping list. I'm going to play around with the software this weekend.

From what I can see, you're too involved in the work and that's going to be hard to let go. That's the reason I have had my fair share of pissed of clients LOL. You need to replace yourself, and it's always easier said than done. I still have my hands in many projects, doing everything from design, to coding, to SEO, etc. There's a few little things you can implement from what I've already suggested and they will have an impact for you. The biggest impact you will have is letting go a little bit.

I know I am. I am seriously having a very hard time letting go. I'm trying very hard but it's a real struggle. For example...(i think i said this above) I'll have my coder build the entire website. When he sends it to me for finalization, I of course don't like it. I call the client as them what they think. They want some changes made. This was my 'key' to re-design the entire thing. So i did. Sent it back to them. They absolutely loved it. Guy referred me to his older brother who owns a neurosurgery malpractice defense office. Built them a website, they ended up becoming a $40k/yr client.

I know what I SHOULD have done was send that website right back to my coder and have him just make the requested revisions the client wanted and left it alone. I probably sound like an over controlling prick, but that's because I am. Lol

I'm trying though, and I agree with you.

I understand having big projects and dedicating time and resources to complete them, and it's easy to think that having more sales while you're working on any project will fix problems but it won't. The problem is you're stretched too thin, you're working on every project. It seems that you're the one that gets the sales. You're a designer, a project manager, HR, sales rep, etc. Maybe for lower end clients like the 3K website for the attorney you SHOULD use some themes. I'd recommend finding an additional outsourcer that can work on projects start to finish.You either need someone working on marketing and sales full time, or you need someone to handle design.

Lately I have been paying my coder to take the websites I have built my clients and create a Theme from them. Basically using everything but the content, images etc. This actually takes a lot of work since most of our websites are completely custom. But he's been doing a great job with it. Plus he's broke and I'm paying him well, so he has some drive to get as many done as he can. My end goal is to have my own 'themes' that I KNOW convert. So many themes out there now are pretty and all but I'll bet you if you looked at their conversion % it's probably -10%.

This way I can conserve my quality to meet my standards and visions, all while cutting down on labor, time, thus increasing turnover.

With Toggl, you just have to log everything you do. You will certainly waste a little bit of time by having to log everything but in the end it is going to help you and your productivity. It's necessary. Do it and you'll be able to see exactly where time is going and how much it adds up when doing certain things that offer no value to the company.

A lot of people rehash a bunch of stuff speaking in cliches like work on your business not in your business, you created a job not a business, etc. but ignore those comments. Everybody works in their business at one point, and no you created jobs for people other than yourself, these are just one liners that stick with people from popular books. Sometimes you have to bust your ass in order to be where you want to be. It doesn't happen by watching at a distance. It also doesn't happen by outsourcing everything, there's no such thing as outsourcing everything.

You know... none of those quotes have ever really fit me. I never entered this world to have an easy job. I have given EVERYTHING up for this life. Friends, social life, GIRLFRIENDS. Seriously...every relationship I've been in has burned because my business means more to me than they do. I don't have much of a life. And that's cool with me. Because I love what I do. It's my passion. I'd be lost doing anything else.

About the mailchimp and FBL, if I don't PM you with the info later, remind me. That's one of the things I don't want to "give away" to everybody reading lol. It will for sure be a time saver for you, and the results will likely be a lot better than you currently have.

VERY excited to hear what you have to say. You can also skype me. Why don't you just PM me your skype.

I also deal with clients across the country, not many locally. I would never, ever travel to shoot 600 products. I would ask for the product list and get stock photos or I would pay a starving photographer $300 from their area to go and take the pictures. This is a big area that you're wasting time in, you can't be everything to everyone. This is something you delegate. There's no reason to do this yourself. As for descriptions, couldn't your assistant do that? Or maybe you need another assistant?

It sounds like you have a great assistant who understands the business, what you want, etc. Why is she still just an assistant?

What you're doing wrong:

- Performing a lot of the work yourself
- Traveling to clients
- Handling all the project management
- Handling all client interaction
- Doing monthly report/phone conferences yourself.

It doesn't seem like much but this is killing you man. Just generating each report then having to stay on the phone forever is sucking your life away.

You're doing work yourself, which is okay. I get it, I still do it, but you're doing TOO much yourself. You're still stuck in the infant mindset phase of the business. What I mean by that, is you're still valuing money over time but it is clear that your time is more valuable and can lead to more money. What do you have more of right now, time, or money?

I guess it just came as second nature to me. Probably because honestly I don't know how to 'run' a business. I'll admit it flat out. I'm a noob at this stuff. Everything you say is opening my eyes more and more. You're completely right.

She should be doing my reports, hell she should be doing MOST of what I'm doing. I have kicked the idea around about giving her a promotion. I need her. I need more than an assistant now, you're right.

Do you have an office or are all these people working remotely? Your coder, assistant?

Yes I have an office locally where my assistant and coder work. It's a huge ass office so there's definitely room for expansion and more employees.

I think it is time for you to add on to your team. Some people will try to get you to outsource this and that and blah blah blah but the truth is, people here, employees, have a lot of advantages to you that outsourcers don't.

It sounds like your assistant doesn't need to be an assistant anymore. I think you can train her to handle more important aspects of your business, and have her train a new assistant. The new assistant will learn from her, you don't have to worry about training the new one. Your existing assistant could likely handle client communication and requests. Project management, and probably the generation of reports and monthly report conferences.

I feel like promoting her to a PM and hiring another assistant is the first step. She can take a LOT of new responsibilities. She knows half of them already. A little training and she'll be a great manager. What do you start your PM's at? $$$

Have you ever worked with interns for coding, development, and design? If so, how did they work out? Do you recommend giving them a SAMPLE project? or Have them dive into one of our real projects?

OR do you think I should go the experienced route, bite the bullet, and pay an experienced designer more than he could make anywhere else locally? I just don't want my overall quality to go to shit because of this shift in the building department. I realize it's going to change a little.

That addition to your team, and promotion is going to change your life, at least for a little bit. I would still recommend having another coder and designer, someone that can work on projects start to finish. Maybe that person can handle lower end stuff and then later on help out with bigger projects. That person can be an outsourcer.

So with the addition of a new assistant, trained by your existing assistant and promoting the existing assistant to handle other areas of the business, you're allowing yourself to have time building your business better, running different marketing campaigns while work is being completed. This allows for better cash flow, consistent sales, and a happy you and happy team. The addition of another website designer, gives you a higher cap for what you can handle.

This will give you structure in the areas you're not a part of. You still need to develop a system for how you will handle your marketing and sales now that you have all this extra time, and you'll eventually want to hire someone to make the sales but for now, the new assistant and promotion of your existing assistant will help you a lot.

Visualizing this already lowered my blood pressure a little bit. I know if my time is freed up, I can get the sales I'm looking for. Then I can begin looking into hiring assistance on the marketing side of things.

Had you not said anything. I was going to look into hiring someone to put on the phone, or on the emailer. Now I see how this would have been a complete disaster.

Would you mind outlining the major details of how you structure your company? It sounds like you're several phases ahead of me. And let me ask you, what is your reason for not having local clients? do you not market to them on purpose? I'm just curious, everyone thinks I'm crazy for not marketing locally. Just wondering if you had a specific reason for not having many local clients.

[ 2 ] Thanks
2 replies

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by shadow92

Looks like a laser printer is on my shopping list. I'm going to play around with the software this weekend.

I know I am. I am seriously having a very hard time letting go. I'm trying very hard but it's a real struggle. For example...(i think i said this above) I'll have my coder build the entire website. When he sends it to me for finalization, I of course don't like it. I call the client as them what they think. They want some changes made. This was my 'key' to re-design the entire thing. So i did. Sent it back to them. They absolutely loved it. Guy referred me to his older brother who owns a neurosurgery malpractice defense office. Built them a website, they ended up becoming a $40k/yr client.

I know what I SHOULD have done was send that website right back to my coder and have him just make the requested revisions the client wanted and left it alone. I probably sound like an over controlling prick, but that's because I am. Lol

I'm trying though, and I agree with you.

Lately I have been paying my coder to take the websites I have built my clients and create a Theme from them. Basically using everything but the content, images etc. This actually takes a lot of work since most of our websites are completely custom. But he's been doing a great job with it. Plus he's broke and I'm paying him well, so he has some drive to get as many done as he can. My end goal is to have my own 'themes' that I KNOW convert. So many themes out there now are pretty and all but I'll bet you if you looked at their conversion % it's probably -10%.

This way I can conserve my quality to meet my standards and visions, all while cutting down on labor, time, thus increasing turnover.

You know... none of those quotes have ever really fit me. I never entered this world to have an easy job. I have given EVERYTHING up for this life. Friends, social life, GIRLFRIENDS. Seriously...every relationship I've been in has burned because my business means more to me than they do. I don't have much of a life. And that's cool with me. Because I love what I do. It's my passion. I'd be lost doing anything else.

VERY excited to hear what you have to say. You can also skype me. Why don't you just PM me your skype.

I guess it just came as second nature to me. Probably because honestly I don't know how to 'run' a business. I'll admit it flat out. I'm a noob at this stuff. Everything you say is opening my eyes more and more. You're completely right.

She should be doing my reports, hell she should be doing MOST of what I'm doing. I have kicked the idea around about giving her a promotion. I need her. I need more than an assistant now, you're right.

Yes I have an office locally where my assistant and coder work. It's a huge ass office so there's definitely room for expansion and more employees.

I feel like promoting her to a PM and hiring another assistant is the first step. She can take a LOT of new responsibilities. She knows half of them already. A little training and she'll be a great manager. What do you start your PM's at? $$$

Have you ever worked with interns for coding, development, and design? If so, how did they work out? Do you recommend giving them a SAMPLE project? or Have them dive into one of our real projects?

OR do you think I should go the experienced route, bite the bullet, and pay an experienced designer more than he could make anywhere else locally? I just don't want my overall quality to go to shit because of this shift in the building department. I realize it's going to change a little.

Visualizing this already lowered my blood pressure a little bit. I know if my time is freed up, I can get the sales I'm looking for. Then I can begin looking into hiring assistance on the marketing side of things.

Had you not said anything. I was going to look into hiring someone to put on the phone, or on the emailer. Now I see how this would have been a complete disaster.

Would you mind outlining the major details of how you structure your company? It sounds like you're several phases ahead of me. And let me ask you, what is your reason for not having local clients? do you not market to them on purpose? I'm just curious, everyone thinks I'm crazy for not marketing locally. Just wondering if you had a specific reason for not having many local clients.

Letting go is one of the hardest things in this business, and even when you have the money to pay some additional help, it's still hard. I've made the mistakes of not getting additional help and it nearly ruined me at the time. Don't make the same mistake.

It took me about 3 years to trust my graphic artist with root access of the development server. Before that, I had to create new FTP accounts for him to access the development site. Before I gave up control to that extent, I had him manually emailing me the image files, and I would upload them. That's how much of a control freak I am capable of being LOL.

Once I started creating an FTP account for him... it helped. It helped take off some of the load that was sitting on my shoulders weighing me down. Eventually I gave him root access, and it helped even more. Now the second a graphic related task is added into my project management system, he's on it, and he takes care of it. I don't have to think about it ever again.

Seems like a pretty easy thing to trust someone with, but for me, it wasn't easy at all. Think about every area of business there is, how intricate and complex it can be, and handling it 100% yourself. That was me. Some obvious areas that most people wouldn't even question outsourcing, I kept in house. It was a mistake.

You have to give up some control or else you will hold yourself back. You're in a potential growing phase, and sales aren't necessarily the answer because more sales means more chaos in your life, and in your business. You don't have a real delegation system yet, so getting more sales will result in you doing more work. You need to work smarter, not harder. The smarter you work, the more profit you will truly have, financially and well being. If you don't make an adjustment, you can likely count up all the hours you work, figure out your hourly pay for the last year, and you will probably be making less than minimum wage lol. Trust me, I know this... I once was the highest paid minimum wage worker. LOL.

You have a lot of areas that need work. I think you can easily improve your process and operation by promoting your assistant and having her train a new assistant, but you still have a glaring weakness and that is a design issue. You want your part in the design process. You're going to hold yourself back though by insisting on that.

How about this as a solution to your design control need... You said your coder is basically making a template out of previously designed sites you guys have done. Maybe it's possible for you to have 4 or 5 variations, work with him on that, and then all you have to worry about is putting in content, graphics and some other basic things that neither one of you have to really worry about doing yourselves.

It isn't the theme that is converting, it is certain things in your development that is causing them to convert. Those features can be added to any theme on earth. I have hundreds of themes that out of the box won't convert higher than 1%. With 1 hour of modifications, additions, subtractions, etc. it can convert at 10%. I'm sure you can do the same thing.

You said it takes a long time to create a theme based on other sites you've developed, but why aren't you just cloning it? Replace the images with demo images, and anything proprietary to the client, swap out. There's many back up plugins if you use Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal... if you're doing straight html/css you can easily clone that too.

I think maybe I'm focusing way too much on this area. It is important, no doubt, but the other things are easier for you to do and will definitely have a high impact. This is probably going to be your biggest hurdle to figure out.

Back to the assistant thing... Stop toying with the idea and do it. Your life will be much better, and your business will be better off. I'm sure you don't like generating reports or having monthly conference calls. Promote her. Have her train a new assistant. She will have a big boost of morale when you do it, which will lead to her being super motivated in training the new assistant, and she will want to overachieve as your project manager. Give her a slight raise... $2/hr additional will have her pretty pumped up I bet.

As for interns... I think they're good for very tedious tasks. Occasionally you will find one that is obviously meant for something more. What I would do, get a few interns to handle some grunt work that doesn't require much thought, and also have them hit the phones. They likely won't be star sales people especially with very little training, but they can probably generate a few decent leads. Maybe use them to cold call, and generate interest, make the goal of the call to be for the prospect to give permission to send additional information if it's something they're interested in, and schedule a follow up call. This lead now gets passed onto you, no longer a cold call, they already have information and expressed interest, so you aren't wasting your time. This builds up your pipeline pretty fast. Give the intern 10% of what you sell from those leads.

The reason I don't go for local clients... I do have a handful, probably more than most people have when they target ONLY local businesses... I don't like them because it's a pain in the ass. They want meetings, they want to stop by, they want you to come by, and because you're local they think you're more accessible. I had this guy that came into my office at least once a week, and I told him I'm going to start billing him $200 for appointments from now on. People that aren't local, respect your time a lot more, since you're not as accessible being located hundreds or thousands of miles away, they see you in a different light than local people would. Local clients have more of a sense of entitlement than out of town clients. At least that's been my experience.

Earlier in your post you mentioned your top 10 things you want to resolve. I think you're still a bit cloudy in your outlook. You're going to get sales, but to be able to reasonably scale from where you are, you have internal issues that need fixed.

This:
2. I want documentation of each person's activity each day. I also want to introduce daily goal setting each AM along with the daily action outlines. This way we can measure our immediate results to see if we hit the production goal for that day.

This is still control.. and while it may seem like it's normal, it's not going to be beneficial. Focus on YOUR time spent, maybe set goals for yourself. You don't want to be micro managing employees. Instead, you need to make clear what your reasonable expectations are for the day.

It seems to me... that there's an indirect issue here. You have 2 employees, your outsourcers aren't going to give you a daily report since it's an entirely different company. Your assistant is good, and does what you want her to do, so you don't want her daily activity report. It seems the issue you have must be your coder. Are you suspecting that he's slacking a bit? Once again, I think you need to set expectations, not expect activity reports. If he fails to meet your expectations then it's time to find someone else.

Thanks
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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Letting go is one of the hardest things in this business, and even when you have the money to pay some additional help, it's still hard. I've made the mistakes of not getting additional help and it nearly ruined me at the time. Don't make the same mistake.

It took me about 3 years to trust my graphic artist with root access of the development server. Before that, I had to create new FTP accounts for him to access the development site. Before I gave up control to that extent, I had him manually emailing me the image files, and I would upload them. That's how much of a control freak I am capable of being LOL.

Once I started creating an FTP account for him... it helped. It helped take off some of the load that was sitting on my shoulders weighing me down. Eventually I gave him root access, and it helped even more. Now the second a graphic related task is added into my project management system, he's on it, and he takes care of it. I don't have to think about it ever again.

Seems like a pretty easy thing to trust someone with, but for me, it wasn't easy at all. Think about every area of business there is, how intricate and complex it can be, and handling it 100% yourself. That was me. Some obvious areas that most people wouldn't even question outsourcing, I kept in house. It was a mistake.

You have to give up some control or else you will hold yourself back. You're in a potential growing phase, and sales aren't necessarily the answer because more sales means more chaos in your life, and in your business. You don't have a real delegation system yet, so getting more sales will result in you doing more work. You need to work smarter, not harder. The smarter you work, the more profit you will truly have, financially and well being. If you don't make an adjustment, you can likely count up all the hours you work, figure out your hourly pay for the last year, and you will probably be making less than minimum wage lol. Trust me, I know this... I once was the highest paid minimum wage worker. LOL.

I suppose it is time to let things pave their own path. I knew the day would come that this would have to happen. But I didn't realize it would be so abrupt. I see what you're saying and you're completely right. Like I think I mentioned before. I started this with the intention for just being a freelancer that ran a small operation. I had no idea that in 1 year I would be dealing with the clients I am. Or facing the problems I am. I suppose it actually took this thread to open my eyes on where I am as a business. Things happened quick and I was not ready to adapt. Trying to run a business like it was ran when you made $4k/mo does not cut it. It's time to face that reality.

You have a lot of areas that need work. I think you can easily improve your process and operation by promoting your assistant and having her train a new assistant, but you still have a glaring weakness and that is a design issue. You want your part in the design process. You're going to hold yourself back though by insisting on that.

How about this as a solution to your design control need... You said your coder is basically making a template out of previously designed sites you guys have done. Maybe it's possible for you to have 4 or 5 variations, work with him on that, and then all you have to worry about is putting in content, graphics and some other basic things that neither one of you have to really worry about doing yourselves.

That's what I'm doing. I didn't say that exactly but that's my intention. I want to have ready made templates with my designs. And he's doing exactly what you said. We have about 40 right now. All ready to roll. Just need images, graphics, and content. All integrated with plugins to clone the original site. All we do is substitute the email optin info and we're ready to roll. I'm excited to implement this new system.

It isn't the theme that is converting, it is certain things in your development that is causing them to convert. Those features can be added to any theme on earth. I have hundreds of themes that out of the box won't convert higher than 1%. With 1 hour of modifications, additions, subtractions, etc. it can convert at 10%. I'm sure you can do the same thing.

You said it takes a long time to create a theme based on other sites you've developed, but why aren't you just cloning it? Replace the images with demo images, and anything proprietary to the client, swap out. There's many back up plugins if you use Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal... if you're doing straight html/css you can easily clone that too.

The reason it's taking long is because many of them are HTML sites. Completely custom. When I say custom I mean the rooftop and sign of the business is integrated into the navigation bar, header, and email optin form. Most of the websites are branded specific to that company it was designed for.

We're taking this and essentially building a wordpress and/or joomla theme from it. Using the same concept, textures, backgrounds, lighting, and navigational system to keep it "custom" if you will. So everything has to be essentially rebuilt the first time. Obviously we can't use the image of the receptionist with a name badge on for the "Let's Chat" infographic, so we clone it with a stock photo and recreate it.

Lately he has been using the responsive slider to recreate the header of the website. My websites always have very unique headers. They can be a PITA to re-create. Much of the time my "header" ties in to something on the web page. Usually a custom infographic. Using the slider allows him to sort of mold the top portion of the web page to look like my original.

Once it's packaged up we can re-use that slider and just upload it with all of the files, change the links and bam...there's your unique, custom website, that doesn't look like it came straight from Themeforest. (although themeforest does have some decent themes)

Once the first copy is done, the remaining 2 are cake.

I think maybe I'm focusing way too much on this area. It is important, no doubt, but the other things are easier for you to do and will definitely have a high impact. This is probably going to be your biggest hurdle to figure out.

Not really...I think you solidified the idea of me getting someone to replace me in this field. From now on, my web development is done. I feel like 40 themes is enough to start out with. We pretty much have all the main industries covered. Of course I'll have him continue building the themes. I want over 100 asap.

This is something I could delegate to my replacement, yeah?

Back to the assistant thing... Stop toying with the idea and do it. Your life will be much better, and your business will be better off. I'm sure you don't like generating reports or having monthly conference calls. Promote her. Have her train a new assistant. She will have a big boost of morale when you do it, which will lead to her being super motivated in training the new assistant, and she will want to overachieve as your project manager. Give her a slight raise... $2/hr additional will have her pretty pumped up I bet.

It's pretty much already done. She just has to accept it. Monday I will have a talk with her. I'll use this thread to make key points on things she will be handling. I was thinking around the same figures $$ for now.

As for interns... I think they're good for very tedious tasks. Occasionally you will find one that is obviously meant for something more. What I would do, get a few interns to handle some grunt work that doesn't require much thought, and also have them hit the phones. They likely won't be star sales people especially with very little training, but they can probably generate a few decent leads. Maybe use them to cold call, and generate interest, make the goal of the call to be for the prospect to give permission to send additional information if it's something they're interested in, and schedule a follow up call. This lead now gets passed onto you, no longer a cold call, they already have information and expressed interest, so you aren't wasting your time. This builds up your pipeline pretty fast. Give the intern 10% of what you sell from those leads.

This actually brings up a great idea. I have an awesome industry specific report I wrote for a conference a while ago. I handed it out at a booth on CD's. They could easily bang out a list and that could be the "more information" you're talking about. The follow-up call will be me the next business day. Screw the report, if they read it cool, if not idc. I have their email, and a reason to talk to them about their marketing.

Good idea

The reason I don't go for local clients... I do have a handful, probably more than most people have when they target ONLY local businesses... I don't like them because it's a pain in the ass. They want meetings, they want to stop by, they want you to come by, and because you're local they think you're more accessible. I had this guy that came into my office at least once a week, and I told him I'm going to start billing him $200 for appointments from now on. People that aren't local, respect your time a lot more, since you're not as accessible being located hundreds or thousands of miles away, they see you in a different light than local people would. Local clients have more of a sense of entitlement than out of town clients. At least that's been my experience.

I laughed at the $200 bill part.

I was just curious. It always baffles people when they find out I don't offer service locally. Truth is....A. like you said, they always want meetings. and B. I seem to 'run into' everyone. Living in a smaller area everyone knows everyone. People around here like to "do business" by going out for a drink, or eat a meal together for meetings.

I completely disagree with that concept. I'm not friends for with my clients. That's what they are to me, clients. They pay me to make them money. I like to keep things that way. Chit chat, and personal life stories are a no go for me. I'm talking to them for one reason. They're paying me to get them customers. Not have a beer with them.

Anyway, that's a little off topic. I was just curious.

Earlier in your post you mentioned your top 10 things you want to resolve. I think you're still a bit cloudy in your outlook. You're going to get sales, but to be able to reasonably scale from where you are, you have internal issues that need fixed.

This:
2. I want documentation of each person's activity each day. I also want to introduce daily goal setting each AM along with the daily action outlines. This way we can measure our immediate results to see if we hit the production goal for that day.

This is still control.. and while it may seem like it's normal, it's not going to be beneficial. Focus on YOUR time spent, maybe set goals for yourself. You don't want to be micro managing employees. Instead, you need to make clear what your reasonable expectations are for the day.

You're right. Maybe it will be best for me to set boundaries and expectations for when I'm allowed to intervene. Maybe that's what it's going to take.

Like; unless we lose a client over it, or it's losing the business money I stay out of it and let nature take it's toll.
My new PM will be responsible for everything else. Customer complaints, Non-payments, late payments, etc.

It seems to me... that there's an indirect issue here. You have 2 employees, your outsourcers aren't going to give you a daily report since it's an entirely different company. Your assistant is good, and does what you want her to do, so you don't want her daily activity report. It seems the issue you have must be your coder. Are you suspecting that he's slacking a bit? Once again, I think you need to set expectations, not expect activity reports. If he fails to meet your expectations then it's time to find someone else.

I don't think he's slacking. But then again I don't know. I'm not a coder. I don't know what kind of expectations to really .... expect. All I know is he can fix and create anything with coding. He's good at it, I know that.

I think one of the issues is I expect a lot from him. I have always expected that he understands things like I do. It took me a long time to figure out that he's does not process things the way I do. Coders are taught one thing...coding. He's like a car with one gear. He doesn't think about the design, appeal, responsiveness, conversion, SEO, He doesn't think of the process as a whole, just the code. Line by line.

It is my fault that I set those expectations for him. I need him though. I just need to actually guide him through the process and explain the details. Because come to think of it. I never really have. It's always been "Hey change this so that I can blah blah blah" I never really tell him why or give details. I've been using him like a robot. He doesn't need to understand everything else, but he needs to be aware of it. I also want him to expand his capabilities a little bit so he can help my future designer, so it's good that I've started him on this "cloning" task this past month. He's improving greatly and learning a lot. I feel like by the time he's finished, he will have a better grasp at WHY my website look the way they do, why the function the way they do, my thoughts and purposes behind them. This is something that I can sit down and how him next week.

I signed up an account for Mailchimp and collected a series of 12 emails from an old email campaign. I can't wait to try this out.

Thanks

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BigFrank

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by shadow92

Hey Frank,

Morning.

First of all, thank you for your input.

Happy to add my input. Happier still that it's greeted, graciously.

And you're right...Every single thing you said is true.

I'm nothing if not a truth teller. lol

However in my particular situation, based on MY personal goals. I respectfully disagree with everything you said.

OK. ???

If you read my other posts you'll see what I'm after. I don't want a small business that's easy for me to manage. I don't want a stress free life. I know that's not going to happen. I know my OP sounds desperate, and I am. However It should be noted that I'm desperate to BUILD, not settle.

I hear you and I have great respect for your ambitious nature. Admiration, also. Knowing what you want out of life is more than half the struggle to achieving happiness. The rest of course, comes from diligently applying everything you know and working as hard as humanly possible toward that end. Obviously, my old age is showing. That and the realization that I have never wanted what you seek. I'm sure it's people like you that have advanced our world over the centuries, but I'm still trying to determine if they should be blamed, or thanked. :-)

I want an empire. I want to be voiced as the best at what I do. I won't stop until I get there.

Well, I do share that credo. If you glance at my signature I think you will see that I mean that. The difference is, I want to totally dominate 'my world,' while it appears that you are stating that you are determined to dominate 'the world.' If I ever fully dominate, control, steer and shape my little piece of the universe, I'll be a very happy and fulfilled camper. I'll leave the rest of the universe to you. You can have it - it's of no use to me. :-)

You're completely right about maintaining and managing good employees. They're a pain in the ass.

A truly generic term that can easily and correctly applied to most humanoids. Truly!

But for me, they're necessary. Most outsourcers suck, I know you'd agree with that.

Without a doubt, but it's OK if most suck. Part of my job is to ferret-out the ones that don't. Until we can say that they 'all' suck, they can and do provide usable output.

Yes there's some good ones but most are terrible and don't deliver. I refuse to have my name poisoned because of that. I want to be able to culture and nourish my employees to design websites like I do. I have a high standard for our work and that won't change. If I took 10 outsourcers and had them try to copy the work we produce, all 10 of them would be lost as soon as they laid eyes on it.

Again, I must say - good luck with that concept. Believe me, as soon as you are able to bring people to the level of competence that you desire for them, generally, they will show their appreciation by determining that they will do much better on their own, not needing you for anything and displaying no appreciation or regard for your efforts as they strike out on their own. I'm not trying to piss on your parade, and I could be wrong, but I'm sensing that you are no older than your early 30's and probably much younger than that. You seem to be under the impression that if you do everything correctly, good things will come of that. Maybe if you are luckier than most, but I can assure you that most of your deepest disappointments in your business life are going to come from being let down by other people. It's going to leave you in a state of abject confusion, scratching your head.

These statements are not meant to be negative, even though on the surface they may appear to be. They are proffered only as incentive for you to consider taking a realistic approach to what any leader of 'men' generally discovers over time and that is that very few individuals will ever rise to the level of your expectations. For everyone leader that has built an empire there are thousands that have fallen short. Of course the reasons for those failures are myriad, but usually they will all circle back to putting your trust in the wrong people, regardless of your impressions of any of their perceived attributes.

I'm not saying this to brag, please don't misunderstand me. I'm saying this because I have got to this point because of my hard, quality work and high standards. This will never change. It's my vision.

Those are prerequisites for success. I have always felt that way, too - and I always believed that if I could find just two people that could match everything I personally brought to the party in the way of tenacity, creativity, and dedication, that I would one day actually rule the world. I'm still looking for both of those people! Trust me, any modicum of success that I have ever achieved was due more to possessing an indefatigable will and an indomitable spirit than any creative genius or technical abilities that I have ever possessed. The word quit is not in my vocabulary. It was expunged, along with the word 'can't,' many decades, ago.

I just honestly don't believe outsourcers could handle what I throw at them. I can't even begin to imagine trying to take on my larger accounts using all outsourcers. I barely trust the ones I use now and I'm great friends with the CEO, I grew up with him.

No one can argue the point of what you know to be your reality. Sometimes, facts are facts. So, it looks like you will need to build an in-house team to meet your long-term goals.

I guess I just want full control, and full responsibility of my employees.

You will always be responsible for them and their actions on your behalf, but unfortunately - - - you will never be able to control them. You can give them everything they need and point them in the right direction but you never know what will emerge from the other end. Could be unicorn poo - could be plain old crap - irrespective of what they produced for you, as recently as yesterday. The vagaries of the human condition and the unpredictability and randomness of our existence does not afford us any guarantees in life. Things can be great - until they ain't no more and that transition can be instantaneous and devastating, both at a personal and business level. Just don't lose sight of that fact. Never say to yourself, "I have put my best employee on it - all will be well."

When shit hits the fan I want to blame myself.

Rest assured that there will be no one else that you can blame. Not even the person you trusted. YOU trusted them. lol

Not wonder what could have been.

We all do that. Just another thing we humans, do.

Am I making sense?

Totally, but the more relevant question is, are you sure that you have realistic expectations and a good understanding of the obstacles you face in this aspect of your modus operandi?

Cliches come about because of their overwhelming truth. See, 'The best-laid plans of mice and men.'

"Vision' is a wonderful thing. Just don't develop tunnel-vision where you become so incredibly focused on the distant future that you lose sight of what is going on in your immediate periphery.

All the best to you.

Cheers. - Frank

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

A couple red flags are going off reading your posts in this thread.

One that really sticks out is the merchant account. They don't close your account for too much processing, they place holds. Is that what happened and you didn't have the cash flow to bounce back? Or were you closed after too many chargebacks? You don't get switched to high risk because of high processing. The first time I processed 20k/mo my processing company said that they can't allow me to do over 25k/mo and will now require a rolling balance and start off at a 30 day hold. Eventually they do 180 day holds, they don't close you unless you're having a high rate of chargebacks or doing something that is not allowed through their terms of agreement. Once you're at your monthly threshold and they won't increase your max due to bad credit or less than average credit, then you just open up another merchant account, process checks, and use paypal. There's no reason you wouldn't be able to process 100-200k/mo distributing your processing.

It seems to me that maybe what you're saying is that sales aren't the problem but that doesn't necessarily mean that profit and cash flow are good. I have a hard time believing that all that is going good when your business is a mess.

The next alarming thing was the question about limiting yourself to one niche. For someone processing a lot in sales, that's an awful idea. Your problem isn't solved, you're just transferring your energy into one area where it isn't effectively solving your own problem anyway. If you're wanting to grow your sales you want to explore other industries and using your strong industries to market to others within those industries.

It's very rare for someone to have organizational issues and be able to deliver all the work that's promised as well. I'm assuming you're doing different typical marketing services... but if you're having problems with sticking to a plan or even developing a plan for your own marketing, I can imagine that you're struggling with project management, delivery of work, maybe some customer service issues, etc.

I hope you don't take offense to anything I've said so far, it's based on assumptions and things I've gone through as well. I've been there. People are always talking about sales and getting clients but rarely do you see advanced discussions on work flow, systems, strategies, plans, time management, etc. Your entire approach is just out of wack, based on what you're telling us.

I think you're making some bad decisions, or maybe, thinking about making bad decisions.

Another one of those bad decisions, was talk about hiring someone to do emailing for you. If you're having people manually email you're wasting your time. That time could be better invested in other areas. Do mass emailing, use a platform like MailChimp and use automation tools for lead/prospect lists through mobile renegade. There, you save some time, money, and become a bit more efficient in one area.

You didn't mention the size team you had, how you're doing project management, etc.

Most noticeable was the amount of stress you're under but the posts in this thread really weren't describing the real problem.

You're acting like your sales are good, but you're also making points about issues that are related to sales. So what is it, are your sales good, or are they a problem? Are you really not having other issues in your business besides sales?

So what's your real problem shadow...?

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

A couple red flags are going off reading your posts in this thread.

One that really sticks out is the merchant account. They don't close your account for too much processing, they place holds. Is that what happened and you didn't have the cash flow to bounce back? Or were you closed after too many chargebacks? You don't get switched to high risk because of high processing. The first time I processed 20k/mo my processing company said that they can't allow me to do over 25k/mo and will now require a rolling balance and start off at a 30 day hold. Eventually they do 180 day holds, they don't close you unless you're having a high rate of chargebacks or doing something that is not allowed through their terms of agreement. Once you're at your monthly threshold and they won't increase your max due to bad credit or less than average credit, then you just open up another merchant account, process checks, and use paypal. There's no reason you wouldn't be able to process 100-200k/mo distributing your processing.

Exactly. They didn't close me down. They did exactly what you said. I can't afford to have them hold $40k for 90 days. I ended up setting up some ACH transfers with some of the larger accounts to drop the CC processing amount. But you're right. They didn't close me down but hell they might as well...180 day holds? WTF Plus I was paying ridiculous processing fees. It's going to save a lot of money doing ACH. We'll see how it goes...

It seems to me that maybe what you're saying is that sales aren't the problem but that doesn't necessarily mean that profit and cash flow are good. I have a hard time believing that all that is going good when your business is a mess.

Ok...In 4 months I have only signed up 1 new monthly client and a few web design clients. Before I landed my big clients sales were fine, I called and emailed all day long, Facebook PPC, email marketing, blogging, social networking...I did it all. And it worked fine.

I landed 6 clients who contribute to 67% of this businesses income. They are large companies setting up marketing plans for different divisions in different states. So the work load of 6 clients is more like 16 clients.

Last month the outsourcers finally got everything up and running (we stripped the websites down and started from scratch with all clients - it took a lot of work) Now the work is all on them, freeing up me and my 2 peeps.

I guess I don't really know how to answer the question. No sales are not good because I haven't sold shit. But we don't need money. And we're not slacking on the workload side because that's ALL we have been doing. Is working on our current client's websites.

The next alarming thing was the question about limiting yourself to one niche. For someone processing a lot in sales, that's an awful idea. Your problem isn't solved, you're just transferring your energy into one area where it isn't effectively solving your own problem anyway. If you're wanting to grow your sales you want to explore other industries and using your strong industries to market to others within those industries.

I honestly don't feel like I'm an 'expert' in any other field. I know this industry well because my entire family works in it. I know the process from top to bottom, literally. I even know inside stuff...hell I could probably train their sales staff if I wanted to..

My point is, I know the industry. I landed an attorney client the other day. And to be honest I wasn't confident in the website I built him and charged him $3,000 for. Yeah it was beautiful, flash integrated buttons, looked like a gem. But I couldn't tell you if it was going to work or not. I have no idea if it's going to convert period. Personally I think there's too much information on the website, but the client insists that it's how he wants it. Needless to say he wants the entire works because he likes the website. SEO, PPC, all the good shit. But I don't know the market. I mean I know it...but I don't UNDERSTAND it like i do my main industry.

I'm ALL about results. I think that's why we have grown. I don't just sell people on an idea. I sell them on an entire plan that I back with current customers. If I can't deliver results I won't take their money.

Maybe not necessarily ONLY work with one industry, but specialize in it? I'm not sure. I'm just not confident in other industries.

Is that normal?

It's very rare for someone to have organizational issues and be able to deliver all the work that's promised as well. I'm assuming you're doing different typical marketing services... but if you're having problems with sticking to a plan or even developing a plan for your own marketing, I can imagine that you're struggling with project management, delivery of work, maybe some customer service issues, etc.

I would say mildly. As I said. We have been focusing ALL of our attention on the clients lately. That's no excuse just dodging the point, I know. So yes you could say we're struggling with project management. But not necessarily delivery of work.

I hope you don't take offense to anything I've said so far, it's based on assumptions and things I've gone through as well. I've been there. People are always talking about sales and getting clients but rarely do you see advanced discussions on work flow, systems, strategies, plans, time management, etc. Your entire approach is just out of wack, based on what you're telling us.

Dude...tear me apart if you have to. I came to a public message board desperately asking for help. The last thing I'm going to do is take offence to anything anyone says. I need to straighten this out and resolve it. Whatever I need to do. And that's the thing...I think we just grew so fast. Not even really grow just got a handful of clients and it just hit us hard. I wanted to keep them as clients obviously so I neglected everything else and focused on them. I've literally been working 18 hour days and not sleeping because of this shit. So by all means fire away.

I think you're making some bad decisions, or maybe, thinking about making bad decisions.

Another one of those bad decisions, was talk about hiring someone to do emailing for you. If you're having people manually email you're wasting your time. That time could be better invested in other areas. Do mass emailing, use a platform like MailChimp and use automation tools for lead/prospect lists through mobile renegade. There, you save some time, money, and become a bit more efficient in one area.

We don't do manual emailing lol. I do use MR for scraping (awesome software btw) I also occasionally purchase one of Info USA's lists. But I have been signing up with multiple hosts and using multiple domains to email under. I meant hire someone to scrape leads, build lists, create and test messages/subjects/offers and actually run the emailing 'department'

(You can send mass emails with mailchimp? don't you get blocked if they're not opted in?)

You didn't mention the size team you had, how you're doing project management, etc.

I employ 2 people. One assistant and one coder/developer. The rest is outsourced to our partners. (not an overseas deal, they're actually a credible company) And I use basecamp for project management.

Most noticeable was the amount of stress you're under but the posts in this thread really weren't describing the real problem.

You're acting like your sales are good, but you're also making points about issues that are related to sales. So what is it, are your sales good, or are they a problem? Are you really not having other issues in your business besides sales?

So what's your real problem shadow...?

I think I answered your question above. I tried at least.

I really really appreciate your input. Because you're right. There are never topics that talk about the growing pains of a business. And like I said. I'm 24, I didn't go to school for any of this, no business degree, and no family or friends to talk to about this kind of stuff.(none of them are business folks) So I really appreciate your input!

Thanks
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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by shadow92

Exactly. They didn't close me down. They did exactly what you said. I can't afford to have them hold $40k for 90 days. I ended up setting up some ACH transfers with some of the larger accounts to drop the CC processing amount. But you're right. They didn't close me down but hell they might as well...180 day holds? WTF Plus I was paying ridiculous processing fees. It's going to save a lot of money doing ACH. We'll see how it goes...

Ok...In 4 months I have only signed up 1 new monthly client and a few web design clients. Before I landed my big clients sales were fine, I called and emailed all day long, Facebook PPC, email marketing, blogging, social networking...I did it all. And it worked fine.

I landed 6 clients who contribute to 67% of this businesses income. They are large companies setting up marketing plans for different divisions in different states. So the work load of 6 clients is more like 16 clients.

Last month the outsourcers finally got everything up and running (we stripped the websites down and started from scratch with all clients - it took a lot of work) Now the work is all on them, freeing up me and my 2 peeps.

I guess I don't really know how to answer the question. No sales are not good because I haven't sold shit. But we don't need money. And we're not slacking on the workload side because that's ALL we have been doing. Is working on our current client's websites.

I honestly don't feel like I'm an 'expert' in any other field. I know this industry well because my entire family works in it. I know the process from top to bottom, literally. I even know inside stuff...hell I could probably train their sales staff if I wanted to..

My point is, I know the industry. I landed an attorney client the other day. And to be honest I wasn't confident in the website I built him and charged him $3,000 for. Yeah it was beautiful, flash integrated buttons, looked like a gem. But I couldn't tell you if it was going to work or not. I have no idea if it's going to convert period. Personally I think there's too much information on the website, but the client insists that it's how he wants it. Needless to say he wants the entire works because he likes the website. SEO, PPC, all the good shit. But I don't know the market. I mean I know it...but I don't UNDERSTAND it like i do my main industry.

I'm ALL about results. I think that's why we have grown. I don't just sell people on an idea. I sell them on an entire plan that I back with current customers. If I can't deliver results I won't take their money.

Maybe not necessarily ONLY work with one industry, but specialize in it? I'm not sure. I'm just not confident in other industries.

Is that normal?

I would say mildly. As I said. We have been focusing ALL of our attention on the clients lately. That's no excuse just dodging the point, I know. So yes you could say we're struggling with project management. But not necessarily delivery of work.

Dude...tear me apart if you have to. I came to a public message board desperately asking for help. The last thing I'm going to do is take offence to anything anyone says. I need to straighten this out and resolve it. Whatever I need to do. And that's the thing...I think we just grew so fast. Not even really grow just got a handful of clients and it just hit us hard. I wanted to keep them as clients obviously so I neglected everything else and focused on them. I've literally been working 18 hour days and not sleeping because of this shit. So by all means fire away.

We don't do manual emailing lol. I do use MR for scraping (awesome software btw) I also occasionally purchase one of Info USA's lists. But I have been signing up with multiple hosts and using multiple domains to email under. I meant hire someone to scrape leads, build lists, create and test messages/subjects/offers and actually run the emailing 'department'

(You can send mass emails with mailchimp? don't you get blocked if they're not opted in?)

I employ 2 people. One assistant and one coder/developer. The rest is outsourced to our partners. (not an overseas deal, they're actually a credible company) And I use basecamp for project management.

I think I answered your question above. I tried at least.

I really really appreciate your input. Because you're right. There are never topics that talk about the growing pains of a business. And like I said. I'm 24, I didn't go to school for any of this, no business degree, and no family or friends to talk to about this kind of stuff.(none of them are business folks) So I really appreciate your input!

Awesome responses, and glad you didn't take offense. Some people come on here, desperately asking for help but what they really want is for people to reinforce their previous opinions. LOL.

I understand your problem with processing. It's a problem I've had numerous times in the past. You're about to set yourself up for more disappointment with the ACH transactions too, they have limits and they're usually less than what your merchant account would have. What you need to do, is look into printing checks yourself. You save even more money, funds are available faster, and you have no limits. It is by far the lowest risk, and my preferred method. I've been promoting printing your own checks for years now. You do that, you'll have better cash flow and no worry about how much the processing company is going to take out in monthly fees, transactional, and batch processing fees, etc.

I hope you remain active on this forum because I bet you have a lot that you can contribute. In fact, things that you're saying remind me of me. What you're going through is exactly what I've been through.

So before you landed the big clients, everything you did was working just fine. You switched gears and stopped working on marketing because you were working on the delivery of the work, is that correct?

I think you're at that awkward growth stage where you get sales, then you deliver the work, start marketing again but since you don't have the advantage of compound marketing for the time you were working on those projects sales slack a little bit until you get the machine going again. Is that right? If so, I know how you feel, and what you really need is another hand to help. I was tired of that happening to me a lot so I pushed and pushed, had tons of campaigns going at once, kept selling, selling, and selling until I had 100k/mo in sales then realized, holy shit, I have a lot of work to do and my existing team couldn't handle it.

The biggest problem I had and still do have, is I'm a cheap *******. I like to work, I like to save money, make money, and not spend money I don't have to. I was poor before, so maybe that contributes to me not wanting to spend money but it is absolutely necessary if you want to grow, build AND KEEP your reputation. You need additional help.

I understand why you want to niche down, but don't. You really don't want to do that at this point. Those that niche down usually do it at the beginning, they don't have your level of growth and success. You have to switch your thinking, what you offer that lawyer that you feel you're inexperienced in his industry, you need to realize that you know a lot. You know how to run PPC, perform SEO.. keywords are keywords and profit is profit. That's what matters. Once you have a client in an area you're unfamiliar with, start getting more in that industry. It's a perfect opportunity to get familiar.

The 18 hours a day. I get that too. I still do 18 hours a day, I've recently done a 20 hour day, 4 hours of sleep followed by another 16 hour day. It's not a badge of honor or something to be proud of, but sometimes it is necessary. You have to do what you have to do to get by, survive, and thrive. I have leaks in productivity that I'm trying to patch up. I know that my 18 hour days aren't always as productive as some of my 8 hour days. Just to examine your productivity, your tasks and what you accomplish, I recommend using Toggl and see exactly where your time goes. Log everything, from bathroom breaks, to smoking, eating, everything you do. Checking facebook, email, etc. log it. Do it for a week and examine... continue to do it and you will find leaks in your productivity. Maybe we can get you working 14 hours a day instead of 18.

As for the emailing issue. I think you're losing out on time and effectiveness. Setting up those different hosts and domains, to send out server side is going to kill your deliverability and open rates. Think about the leads you've gotten from it right now, and multiply it by 5... maybe even 10. That's what you're missing out on.

You're supposed to have an opt in list with mail chimp, but I don't. You just have to be careful and remove the emails that are part of a feedback loop. Seriously, do it. Get it. It's a bit of automation that you can have. Spend a few hours developing campaigns, and you have an email campaign going out to the list of emails you harvested and it's fully automated after that little time invested. I like to create a sequence of 8 emails before giving a couple week break, sometimes I will do a sequence of 12. That way I can set up those emails, schedule, and not have to mess with it again for 3 months.

Your outsourcing.... and your assistant and coder... what is everybody's job? Who does what, what do you do exactly? You need to expand your team even if it is overseas, but to help you decide which area you need help in, I need to know a bit more.

As for basecamp... that's pretty much the industry standard it seems. I hate it. You spend too much time moving around the platform than you do managing projects. I recommend you trying out TeamworkPM... at least give it a trial and see if that is easier for you.

This is the kind of topic this forum needs.. It's been a while since there was a real discussion.

You're going to be fine. Growing pains, experience gathering, that's all it is.

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Awesome responses, and glad you didn't take offense. Some people come on here, desperately asking for help but what they really want is for people to reinforce their previous opinions. LOL.

I understand your problem with processing. It's a problem I've had numerous times in the past. You're about to set yourself up for more disappointment with the ACH transactions too, they have limits and they're usually less than what your merchant account would have. What you need to do, is look into printing checks yourself. You save even more money, funds are available faster, and you have no limits. It is by far the lowest risk, and my preferred method. I've been promoting printing your own checks for years now. You do that, you'll have better cash flow and no worry about how much the processing company is going to take out in monthly fees, transactional, and batch processing fees, etc.

I hope you remain active on this forum because I bet you have a lot that you can contribute. In fact, things that you're saying remind me of me. What you're going through is exactly what I've been through.

So before you landed the big clients, everything you did was working just fine. You switched gears and stopped working on marketing because you were working on the delivery of the work, is that correct?

I think you're at that awkward growth stage where you get sales, then you deliver the work, start marketing again but since you don't have the advantage of compound marketing for the time you were working on those projects sales slack a little bit until you get the machine going again. Is that right? If so, I know how you feel, and what you really need is another hand to help. I was tired of that happening to me a lot so I pushed and pushed, had tons of campaigns going at once, kept selling, selling, and selling until I had 100k/mo in sales then realized, holy shit, I have a lot of work to do and my existing team couldn't handle it.

The biggest problem I had and still do have, is I'm a cheap *******. I like to work, I like to save money, make money, and not spend money I don't have to. I was poor before, so maybe that contributes to me not wanting to spend money but it is absolutely necessary if you want to grow, build AND KEEP your reputation. You need additional help.

I understand why you want to niche down, but don't. You really don't want to do that at this point. Those that niche down usually do it at the beginning, they don't have your level of growth and success. You have to switch your thinking, what you offer that lawyer that you feel you're inexperienced in his industry, you need to realize that you know a lot. You know how to run PPC, perform SEO.. keywords are keywords and profit is profit. That's what matters. Once you have a client in an area you're unfamiliar with, start getting more in that industry. It's a perfect opportunity to get familiar.

The 18 hours a day. I get that too. I still do 18 hours a day, I've recently done a 20 hour day, 4 hours of sleep followed by another 16 hour day. It's not a badge of honor or something to be proud of, but sometimes it is necessary. You have to do what you have to do to get by, survive, and thrive. I have leaks in productivity that I'm trying to patch up. I know that my 18 hour days aren't always as productive as some of my 8 hour days. Just to examine your productivity, your tasks and what you accomplish, I recommend using Toggl and see exactly where your time goes. Log everything, from bathroom breaks, to smoking, eating, everything you do. Checking facebook, email, etc. log it. Do it for a week and examine... continue to do it and you will find leaks in your productivity. Maybe we can get you working 14 hours a day instead of 18.

As for the emailing issue. I think you're losing out on time and effectiveness. Setting up those different hosts and domains, to send out server side is going to kill your deliverability and open rates. Think about the leads you've gotten from it right now, and multiply it by 5... maybe even 10. That's what you're missing out on.

You're supposed to have an opt in list with mail chimp, but I don't. You just have to be careful and remove the emails that are part of a feedback loop. Seriously, do it. Get it. It's a bit of automation that you can have. Spend a few hours developing campaigns, and you have an email campaign going out to the list of emails you harvested and it's fully automated after that little time invested. I like to create a sequence of 8 emails before giving a couple week break, sometimes I will do a sequence of 12. That way I can set up those emails, schedule, and not have to mess with it again for 3 months.

Your outsourcing.... and your assistant and coder... what is everybody's job? Who does what, what do you do exactly? You need to expand your team even if it is overseas, but to help you decide which area you need help in, I need to know a bit more.

As for basecamp... that's pretty much the industry standard it seems. I hate it. You spend too much time moving around the platform than you do managing projects. I recommend you trying out TeamworkPM... at least give it a trial and see if that is easier for you.

This is the kind of topic this forum needs.. It's been a while since there was a real discussion.

You're going to be fine. Growing pains, experience gathering, that's all it is.

Ya know,I might actually sleep tonight.

It sounds like we have many similarities my friend. I'll give more details in the AM.

Again, Thank you....seriously

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bizgrower

9 years ago

You're actually in a good spot because you can and will move to the next level.

Don't think, just answer quickly:

What are the top ten things you want to resolve now?
Of those ten, which ones do you need to act upon right away?

Thanks

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Celltactics

9 years ago

One of the best threads in offline in months. Some really great stuff here. Keep up the good work, folks. This wil help a lot of people avoid the issues you're having.
Shadow92, thank you for sharing this with us.

Thanks

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thet

9 years ago

Great advice here.

Also, don't forget that you already did that most don't dare to do or are not capable of doing.
Bringing your own business to a point where it's making a profit like that, that's already amazing.
Believing you can get more out of it, look back, reflect and being able to ask for help while what you are doing is considered by most as damn successful, is amazing.

Good luck!

Thanks

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Creativegirl

9 years ago

Great "real business" discussion here. iAmNameLess offers very good advice as usual.

On the interest and advice of niches, both are right.

Makes sense to grow your market share in the niche you know inside and out as it is easier for you to sell, close, produce and profit in.

But as iAmNameLess suggests, don't limit your self unless you simply don't want to expand.

So much of what we do is rinse and repeat. You may be an expert in that niche but you are hands down an expert in the web, seo, ranking, lead gen, and increasing revenue for your clients. The results (not your niche) is what every business with your circle of influence wants to buy.

That said, don't think twice about saying "no" when it's a distraction or drain on resources. If you have a network to refer the "no's" to you'll be a hero, get a finders fee and likely get referrals and more work from both.

Also agree with BigFrank. Not everyone is prepared or wants to be an "employer" which is what you are talking about.

Your outsourcing issue and later comments seem at odds with one another. Many boutique businesses thrive using a network and outsourcing model with only a small core staff. In fact, I'm seeing this take off and thrive in industries that I would not have predicted 5 years ago.

Good luck, you'll get through the growing pains because like one of the others said, you have accomplished what most never do.

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bizgrower

9 years ago

Coders are not always the best at design. You might look for a designer to take over that work and let your coder code.

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by bizgrower

Coders are not always the best at design. You might look for a designer to take over that work and let your coder code.

Yeah, agreed. Even if the coder was good at design, I think he is way too dependent on this guy. I think to improve on that part of the business he should look into hiring an outsourcer to take some of the load. Even at $3/hr there are tons of good designers available.

Also... who does your graphic design? Don't tell me it's you.

I will respond to the rest in a bit. I have a few things going on and I can't respond in detail like I want.

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Yeah, agreed. Even if the coder was good at design, I think he is way too dependent on this guy. I think to improve on that part of the business he should look into hiring an outsourcer to take some of the load. Even at $3/hr there are tons of good designers available.

Also... who does your graphic design? Don't tell me it's you.

I will respond to the rest in a bit. I have a few things going on and I can't respond in detail like I want.

I did for a long time. Now I have a guy that handles most of it. Pay as needed type deal. Just a local freelancer. I've offered him a full time position several times. This is one aspect of the business I am actually comfortable outsourcing.

Look forward to hear your extended response.

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savidge4 9 years ago

A part of growth is "Growing Pains" and that is where you are at. I would consider your situation to be at the second major cross roads of growth. The first being a self proprietor setup and growing into a "Company" Understanding that in order to build your business and your wealth, people other than yourself are needed.

The place you are in is a step beyond that. Right now I am guessing you have a team, but you are 1 of the team. You need to step up and start managing the team.

The work doesn't come to you to get done, it comes across your desk to get your stamp of approval. I can tell you personally, this is has always been a hard step for me to take.

I am in agreement with your idea that you need to bring your work force in house vs outsourced. There are as I see it many advantages to the concept. #1 being the time spent. Outsourcing is great if you have a simplified well defined task. However, the moment that the task changes as in with each client, there is much time spent over looking the work, and sending it back, and relooking and sending it back etc.

The moment you develop a solid in house team things change... More importantly HOW you work changes. If you bring together a team that is rich in cohesive strengths and weakness' things can be delegated and done... more importantly you can develop a SYSTEM, that allows the work to flow from start to finish. Every knows their part, and performs as such. Its truly a magical thing when it happens.

My web design business was recently bought out. Sure they bought me out because of my client base, but more importantly they bought my business for its system. I am a huge fan of glass boards ( white boards ) I can look at a board and tell you here in the process each and ever project that is in house is at. Beyond that I have a self programmed time tracking system that allowed me to see how much time was spent and by whom on each project.

Between the team that I gathered, and the system that I set in place, this freed me to spend the time needed to bring in more work. It also afforded me the knowledge of knowing when I needed to step in and help.

Based on the OP.. you simply do not have a system in place, and it sounds like you have workers, but you don't have a team. Both come with time and experience, and both are needed benchmarks in your companies growth.

Hope that Helps!
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wb_man

9 years ago

How much are you making with your business? mid 5 figures/month?

What services do you offer? just web design and seo?

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anwar001

9 years ago

I think the main issue with you is not the sales but the management. You are worried and feel uncomfortable as you feel everything is going on in unorganized manner. My suggestion would be to hire someone who is good in this regard whose responsibility would be to set up systems and get all processes organized.

As a CEO or owner of business, one thing to avoid is trying to do all by yourself. If you are not good at something, instead of trying to read books and learning the stuff yourself, it is far better and easier to hire someone good for doing the things which you are not good at. Maybe you are skilled in bringing sales, catching topnotch clients, negotiating deals etc which can be reflected by the fact that you have high paying clients and are generating nice business.

So why not keep focusing on the things you are good at and hire someone to manage the other stuff? A big mistake would be if you stop focusing on the very things which you are naturally good at to learn and focus on other aspects of your business. This might lead to more problems in future. Try to workaround your weaknesses by hiring someone else or through any other means while still being focused on using your strengths for increasing your business.

This is where a lot of people go wrong. They think that they have to improve their weaknesses and start focusing on these to the extent that they have lesser and lesser time to utilize their strengths to grow their business further. A survey revealed interesting statistics when people were asked which thing would be most helpful in making you successful - building on strengths or fixing weaknesses, about 63% percent answered that fixing weaknesses would be most helpful. This is what the majority of us think which has been proven wrong by the most successful people in any industry. They focused on their strengths even though they had hundreds of weaknesses like others, they just kept on doing the things they were good at and achieved much more success!

A good read is the book 'Now, Discover Your Strengths' by Marcus Buckingham. Just Google it. The author spent 17 years in Gallup organization interviewing and conducting research of the world's leading managers, businessmen and leaders. He points out how our culture is focused on weaknesses while we should be more focused on our strengths because this is the area which provides maximum potential for growth. The real key to personal development is building on who you already are.

Suppose you work on your weaknesses, you can only improve a little. If you work on your strengths, your improvement can be much greater and bring in more more benefits to you because this is the area which you have natural inclination for. Read the book and it explains the concept much more beautifully and effectively. It can change your whole mindset.

This is the belief of the Gallup Organization - "People have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies"

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bizgrower

9 years ago

Maybe after your new employee(s) are in place, run a brainstorming session or two.
Just have them throw out their ideas without regard to being good or bad. No ridicule.
They will be fully thought out later. Everybody should understand that some may be
implemented right away, some later, and some never. Have someone write the ideas down.

Besides the simple ground rules, ideas should revolve around increasing efficiencies (including
office equipment), increasing revenues, reducing costs...

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BigFrank Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by bizgrower

Have someone write the ideas down.

Better to record the session. "Tone' is important and impossible to transcribe, accurately and efficiently.

Additionally, and I know this reinforces my disappointment in people in the workplace, but you can rest assured that someone will try to take credit for someone else's idea - especially if the contributor is no longer there.

I'm done. lol

Cheers. - Frank
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Oziboomer

9 years ago

Wow...I've been there at least four or five times in the last 25 years in business.

Right now got 6 full time staff, 3 part time, plus outsourcers.

Systems are the key as is getting a good psychologist.

Take two days off per week and work one day where you get no interruptions and you can just do what is important.

Spend time with your family or time refreshing yourself.

Business as does life has the habit of coming back and teaching you the lessons you fail at over and over until you learn.

Many good coaches, psychologists, even sometimes my accountant, helps overcome the issues you are having. It doesn't sound like you have the problem of too little business.

Get help.

Honestly a good psychologist will help unlock the solutions to your problems and one day you'll wake up and fix them almost instantly.

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bizgrower

9 years ago

I guess maybe do written and audio recording of the brainstorming sessions in case the audio is not audible.

You could add another ground rule that it's not about "credit" for the ideas and all get a bonus
based upon savings or revenue increase OR do a concrete reward for the idea and the person
who came up with it.

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Bayo

9 years ago

Originally Posted by shadow92

Today I took the time to sit down and really look at my company as a whole.

When I look at it from the top it's a freakin mess. There is no schedule, no rhyme or rhythm to things.

Some days we're emailing some days we're calling nothing is consistent. There have been many campaigns that we started, invested $$$ in, and never even followed up besides those who contacted us.

All because ultimately....there is no sequence in my business.

This is where you answers are.

Resolve these based on a thought-through and deliberate approach, and I guarantee that you'll start getting the results you're seeking.

Keep it simple as well or you could potentially spend (not invest) a lot of time and still not have anything to show for it.

BAYO

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DaniMc

9 years ago

You are getting really great advice from Nameless.

As a matter of fact, I remember him posting almost this exact same thread about 2 years ago. Now he has really pulled through.

What you are being told comes from someone who just lived it out. You are going to make this happen!

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Skystar

9 years ago

Wow Shadow - nice post- you sure got everybody's attention! One thing I'm really glad to see - candid responses instead of a lot of eyewash. Here's my 2¢

1. In the first place, I don't get the impression you recognize the value of your success. You've been doing the right things so far to get where you are - now let's refine the process.

2. You need a nerd manager - pref some kick ass woman who knows your business as well as you do and who can take over daily nuts and bolts. I once had a successful business where my partner and I 'winged-it' every day until we hired 'Andra'. Wow - she came in, took names and kicked butt and our business really took off. She kept us insulated from day-to-day stuff, managed our employees, filtered vendors, smoozed prospects etc.. I like to work late, so I would leave her a mini-recording with questions. She would write them out and put the answers on my desk for the next day when I cam in at 10 am. She got us organized in spite of ourselves!

3. You might take a page from Steve Jobs - just a hustling marketer with the money to conceive innovative gadgets and hire the right people to make and sell them. You need to take a much larger view of your gig - you are the driving force, and your vision, ideas and decisions make the company go. No more micro managing. I know you don't believe it, (I don't), but there are a few people out there as smart as you are. Find 'em, hire 'em then get out of the way.

4. Specialize in the niche you know and love - yes! You'll wind up owning this niche and eventually be able to charge what you want for your unique, specialized service. The cat who comes around the corner and sees a flock of pigeons and runs after them all never makes it. The cat who comes around the corner and zeros in on one, eats that night.

5. Telesales - fer sure don't go offshore. Nothing but trouble, and one slip or promise can get you in a lot of trouble. It happened to us. Instead, find, hire and train young students and manage them out of your office. You gotta have them in house - tele-commuting doesn't work.

Lastly, read Robert Ringers book - 'Winning Through Intimidation' He doesn't mean intimidating people, it's just a good ( and _very_ interesting) read on a successful of doing business. He went from living out of a Ryder rent-a-truck to the mansion in Beverly Hills he could see out the back end.

Best of luck!

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Shadow,

How are things going? Have you made any adjustments yet?

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shadow92 9 years ago

All I can say is WOW. What a ride these past couple weeks have been. I don't even really know where to begin.
After this thread took off. I printed all of the responses and started reading. Going along with a fine tooth comb, highlighting everything that popped out at me. Let's just say the page was completely yellow by the time I was done...
The advice given here really made me think about things at a different angle. So let's begin..

After soaking all of the information up, I knew it was time to take action. There were two main problems that kept slamming me right in the face.

1. Control issues - My lack of being able to let go and step out of the ring. Constant micromanagement. Keeping me nailed down "catching up" on projects. That was a term mentioned by me daily "I need to catch up" - This was a major issue.

2. Stagnant money - As the business made money...I simply kept it. That easy. I would pay the basics to keep the business running, pay my labor costs, take a cut out for taxes, and the rest would go into a checking account. Over the months this account grew, grew, and grew some more. All the money was incoming. Not a single penny spent on marketing. Maybe a few bucks here or there for some software or something but nothing special. - This was another major issue.

(A little disclaimer...I'm not typically one to give out information like this. Because it's personal and none of your business. However I feel like this thread really sprouted out and I really hope it can help more people. I want this post to be as informative as possible so others can see how I responded to the situation I was in based on the great advice given here. I also want to look back at this in 2016 and laugh)

I took $100,000 out of the account as an owners draw and put it in my savings. 2015 is going to be a big year for me either way. I'm either going big or going home. The $100k is if for some reason shit hits the fan, I'm going to be able to survive and invest in something else.

"The Board" - Since I knew that giving up control was going to be hard for me, I knew I was going to have to let go completely and just say **** it. My attention is now on sales and building processes to accumulate clients. Once the sale is complete, I no longer touch anything...at all. So the board was my way of keeping things in line. I bought a huge whiteboard that I put in the meeting room of the office. This board has an "anything goes" policy. Whenever someone from the team has an idea, sees something go well, sees something go bad, runs into a problem with anything (other than co-worker/personal matters) They write it down on the board. Each week we have a meeting on Monday morning and everyone goes over the board. It's proved to be a great way to solve the little problems. And 90% of the time they can be solved without my involvement. It also lets everyone know that their opinion matters and they're not afraid to voice their opinions because it's all anonymous if you want it to be. Just write it down and it gets addressed regardless. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

New office - I ended up upgrading offices to a nicer location, with larger space for a few dollars more. It was a great deal and 100% worth the move. We're no longer in a complex with other offices. We're our own office with our own parking lot. It actually feels like a business now! I pretty much did it for the space. Almost 1,000sqft more. Just a much nicer place all around. AND the starbucks is literally our neighbor.

New Project Manager - My old assistant is now my project manager. I sat down with her and made a pretty generous offer for this promotion. I need her to stay with my company, especially right now. With a nice little raise and hefty Christmas bonus, she accepted. I'm happy to see her excited. She's thrilled about what she's going to be doing and the changes that are being made. She's going to be handling everything from the point of sale. Once I run the credit card, she takes over. I introduce each customer to her in a three-way conversation on the phone. I do this to keep the new customers comfortable. People don't like it when you take their money and just say CYA! I want them to feel comfortable with her, and I want her to feel comfortable with them. Plus it puts everyone on the same page and lately I have been finding that it's easier to upsell them as soon as we complete the initial project at hand, I simply call them back up and ask how they like it. The feedback has been excellent so far.

New assistant - I hired a new assistant to take monicas place. Monica has been training her to answer basic questions and explain the processes of how our projects progress, and kind of how the company works. Monica was very adamant that she wanted to train her to do the tasks that SHE wanted her to do. She basically kicked me out of the equation. Which I'm surprising cool with. I'm letting them do their thing. I do check in with Monica and ask how things are going, but other than that. I don't really care. The best way to put it is...she's not my new assistant, she's Monicas.

My coder - He's really stepped his game up and is currently working on a piece that will allow us to drag and drop content, and images right on the new templates he's created. Right now we have a little over 160 templates that WE designed. The new editor will allow us to pick from our library, select files on our desktop and put them in a que bar. From there, we can build the website. Multiple windows can be open at once. Once everything is built, we can publish the changes straight from the software. We can literally re-build a 20 page website in a half hour with this thing. There's still some bugs but it works very well. I plan on evolving this as much as possible. I would like to integrat real time viewing like team viewer so we can go over revisions with clients LIVE. He will definitely be busy, but it will be with things that coders actually do. He won't be coding one day, and designing the next... He's very excited about the new editor.

Two Web Designers - I hired two new guys that I knew through mutual friends. One is an amateur and the other is decent. Nothing too impressive. However they don't need to be good with the new templates that have been created. It's pretty cookie cutter. However the results are very impressive so far. My coder is teaching them how to use the editor and they're helping him with ideas on revisions. They work pretty well together, I have them in the same room with two different desks next to each other. Unless they start trying to kill each other, I think I'll keep it that way. They like to listen to music and no one else does. So we locked them in the same room LOL..

Graphic Designer - I'm not going to lie here. I use Fiverr for a lot of graphic design needs now lol. It gets the job done, and customers don't complain so I'm happy. I do have a good friend that is extremely talented but he's not cheap. So I only really use him for higher end clients or if we're building a flash website. Other than that I have a 3rd connection that I pay under the table to make little revisions and do anything that the web designers can't figure out. He's a straight up basement dweller. No kidding...the guy lives with his mom and he's 35. He told me the other day he was excited because he was going out and buying a new series of some anime cartoon. I just shake my head and hand him his money. Yeah he's a creep but he's always there when I need him. Until he goes to prison for child pornography I'll use him. He works from the comfort of his mothers basement, and he's not allowed in the office. I drop his money off to him LOL

New computers - I did pimp everyone out with some new iMacs and kept all of the desktops in each office as well. Best of both worlds. It was like Christmas morning when everyone arrived at work this past monday.

Check printing - Iamnameless suggested printing my own checks. I considered this in the past but went ahead and purchased all the shit to do it. I'm still working out the kinks with this. I had some pushback at the bank the other day with their "supervisor" so I'm scheduled for a meeting Friday with the branch manager to get the green light. Going to make a few examples and I drafted up an authorization form by cloning my CC auth forms. Just re-worded it.

So that's what has happened on the project management end. I'm in control of the sales end and this is what I have so far.

Mailing - I'm starting to mail out postcards to different industries. I'm working with a local company on this and can't really disclose much more than that. We're targeting an industry with each mailing. I have never really tried mailing but the couple times I did, I actually had pretty good success with it. The lady that's working with me from the company is a good friend of my parents so I'm getting a hell of a deal on her time. They design the copy and graphics for the cards and she's only charging me $20/hr. They do some excellent stuff and work with all the major companies locally. I'm excited to expand on this relationship. Come Jan 2015, we'll be ready with the test batch of about 25k cards.

Email - I prefer not to get in to this. I will say I'm actively participating in emailing every day and am working on implementing different systems for best results.

Cold calling - I'm hiring a guy that will be doing the calling for 3 hours on Tuesday and Thursday. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to have him do. I'm sure it will change constantly. Most of the calling he will be doing will be following up on other campaigns from the email and mailing sector. He has some experience in cold calling from an auto dealer but most of his calling won't be cold since I have other systems in place that will happen each month. This will keep him busy. And no...he's not closing any deals. Anyone that's interested goes straight to me. I got a new cell phone that only gets calls from leads, NOT CUSTOMERS, NOT EMPLOYEES, just leads. My assistant and this guy will be the only ones with that number. As far as his setup, He's using my old laptop and doing some ghetto skype and autodialer calling. We use like 5 skype accounts on their calling plan for $2.97/mo for each account. This allows him to switch accounts IF they reach their call limit. Sometimes they disable calling after 50 calls on an account and let it go for over 300 on another. It works for now. Like I said, it's pretty primitive.

Facebook PPC - I'm really hammering down on this. Mostly using it to build targeted lists (not the same as my outbound emailing processes) I like use facebook PPC for offering foot in the door services like Mobile Design. We usually move them to a page where we've cloned Dudamobiles script. Allowing them to put their website url in and get a live preview - FOR FREE! Then we have a CTA with a big red button that says "LOCK IT IN" once they click this it comes to an order form where they fill out their contact information and submit. We call them and close the deal. I've been closing these like candy lately.

For now that's it. I keep a different station for each marketing strategy in the office. For some reason it makes it easier for me to keep shit together. So I literally walk around my office from station to station and make sure everything is on schedule. I have also set time slots for each marketing category. That way I don't get caught up in one thing for too long. So far, it's working like a charm.

I'm very happy with how things are playing out. I plan on bringing on more help as needed to take care of the sales side of things. But for now, I'm just going to stick with a part time caller and me. Later on I might start dabbing in Google PPC campaigns and hire someone for social media. That's a whole different story, I don't just setup PPC and piss money down the drain sending them to my company website. We will eventually set up niche specific websites branded under our company name and target the markets in sections...market by market. Then dedicate our offers to each market. Like I said though...that's a future goal. Nothing that's going to happen right now.

In the past week we have made about $20,000 in sales.I'm happy with that. And more importantly, my team was able to handle it very well. I was very impressed with how everyone worked together and the turnaround time. Things are a little rocky here and there but overall I'm very impressed with how everyone is doing.

I have very high hopes for 2015.

I said it before and I'll say it again. I truly appreciate all of the feedback on here. Like I said, I don't really have anyone to talk to about this stuff. So the advice on here was definitely heartwarming.

If you have any input feel free!
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AaronHarris

9 years ago

You need to build better content for your website that promotes your business and services. Do really good seo. Buy traffic. When you buy traffic, your website will have a high rank on different search engines.

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by AaronHarris

You need to build better content for your website that promotes your business and services. Do really good seo. Buy traffic. When you buy traffic, your website will have a high rank on different search engines.

Did you even READ anything in this thread?

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shadow92 9 years ago

Oh yes....big changes.

typing response right now (gonna be a long one)
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bizgrower

9 years ago

Shadow,

Talk about taking action. WOW

Thank you for the candor. This is one of the best threads and I hope very educational to a lot
of people.

All I can think of right now is:

Make it a point to add strategy to your role - "My attention is now on sales and building
processes to accumulate clients." New market's - either niches or demographic/geographic,
new technologies, improvements in your operations... Have it built into your routine to shape
your company to the visions you have.

Maybe develop your cold caller - as you called him - into someone who could follow up as you
do with Monica and get upsells/additional work that way. "Plus it puts everyone on the same page and lately I have been finding that it's easier to upsell them as soon as we complete the initial project at hand, I simply call them back up and ask how they like it. The feedback has been excellent so far. "

Remain accessible to the customers. "If you like what we do, tell a friend. If you don't, tell me."
Here's my number... Here's my email...

Dan

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

This is all great news. Glad you took the advice and implemented it.

Now in about 3-4 months you should be having an entirely new series of problems... if you don't, you didn't do it right! LOL.

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savidge4

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

This is all great news. Glad you took the advice and implemented it.

Now in about 3-4 months you should be having an entirely new series of problems... if you don't, you didn't do it right! LOL.

hahaha so true! Nothing another white board wont fix is what I say!

Shadow.. seriously.. get a glass board. the brand new white board will go out the door in seconds!

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Skystar

9 years ago

Yahoo - Progress!

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nathanjacobs

9 years ago

iamnameless, or anyone else, you talk a lot about creating systems - what book would you suggest I read for creating systems and scaling up. I'd like to put my business more on auto-pilot and take myself more out of the day to day like you have suggested op do here. any suggestions?

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by nathanjacobs

iamnameless, or anyone else, you talk a lot about creating systems - what book would you suggest I read for creating systems and scaling up. I'd like to put my business more on auto-pilot and take myself more out of the day to day like you have suggested op do here. any suggestions?

I don't really recommend any book for that. I read a lot of books, some for business, others are history, political, biographies, etc. but I haven't come across a book that really covers this and I don't think a book is necessary for creating systems.

The first thing to realize is that creating a process or system, doesn't make your business run on auto-pilot, nor does it mean you get to work 4 hours a week like the dream Tim Ferris sells you.

You basically want to continue replacing yourself in different areas. There's no sense in making it more complicated than it needs to be. Do you not want to cold call people anymore? Hire someone to do it. Do you not want to do project management? Get a project manager.

You have to be in a position to hire in order to worry about taking yourself out of a certain area of your business. Assuming you're in that position, what are things that you can automate or hire someone to do for you? It's really that easy.

Now creating processes and systems, that's a bit different, and depends on what you're offering. For example, with web design once someone becomes a client, you may have different designs or different projects of various complexity but no matter what kind of project it is, there are things that are the same. It's all about efficiency.

Of course... if you do replace yourself over and over again, you need to make sure that the additional time you have will allow you to increase revenue and profit, so you can continue replacing yourself.

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savidge4

9 years ago

Originally Posted by nathanjacobs

iamnameless, or anyone else, you talk a lot about creating systems - what book would you suggest I read for creating systems and scaling up. I'd like to put my business more on auto-pilot and take myself more out of the day to day like you have suggested op do here. any suggestions?

My Life And Work (The Autobiography Of Henry Ford)

Its Henry Ford in his own words... what else can be said?

I have over the years spent a kick ton of time, money, and resources in systems. My current time management system has been a work in progress now for geeze 30 yrs. It stems way back to when I was 16 and developed a touch pad system for my families print shop to track time spent in each department / employee for every job that passed through.

What you get out of developing a system is directly correlated to what you put into developing them.

I would say the first step in developing a system is looking at what you are already doing. How do you get clients? what are you doing now to monitor where in the process these are be it first contact to signing a contract. There are tons of CRM products on the market for this. I personally use Google Contacts with Google Calendars for much of this. I like the fact that the data can be shared transparently across many users. AND it literally is at your fingertips via a phone no matter where you are.

You then look at what happens once you have landed the contract. what it is you are doing now. what directions do projects have to go, who has to be contacted etc. I still for the most part use Calendars for this as well. Timelines get set for each project, what has to be done when, and a set completion date. At this point for me there is also the use of a white board. This enables anyone in the office to go look at the board and see exactly where the project is, and what needs to be done.

Again.. what you put in is what you get out. I have spent the time and broken down every step of what it is I do. I know for better than the most part who is going to do what, and what order it has to be done in. A glance for me at that board lets me know if I need to step in and help, or simply step in and place a foot somewhere if you know what I mean.

Don't be afraid to change the system(s) you have.

Systems fail, they just do. its a matter of deciding if it is a once off thing, or is it a pattern. If it is a pattern you need to step in and see what the issue is and correct it. Don't fight the fact its failing, don't yell at someone because they didn't follow the system... make the system work with all of the components that work with it. IE Employees, production, outsourcing etc.

I have tried more than once let alone 10 times to outsource. The truth for me is, I had a hard time developing a system that worked in those cases. Pretty much the only thing I outsource anymore is printing ( Ironic given how I was raised ) and I will tell you I am always just that close to making the investment in a press and cutter.

I actually in my new shop have the power drops and space in place to do this. So it surprises me even more I have not made the jump.

I am not a big fan of weekly "meetings". They actually drive me crazy. Meetings are for companies that have multiple decision makers, or simply lack in place systems.

I have found over the years that a GOOD system may not always make things more efficient than what you have now, but allows you to SEE where that project is, and how it is coming together.

If you know it or not...if you are working for yourself or you do have an organization, you DO HAVE systems in place. Its simply a matter of identifying those systems and honestly looking at ways to make them more efficient, more transparent to those that work within the system, and ensuring they actually work.

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DABK

9 years ago

If I recall correctly, Michael Gerber's The E-Myth has a section on this.

Quite a helpful book.

Originally Posted by nathanjacobs

iamnameless, or anyone else, you talk a lot about creating systems - what book would you suggest I read for creating systems and scaling up. I'd like to put my business more on auto-pilot and take myself more out of the day to day like you have suggested op do here. any suggestions?

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by DABK

If I recall correctly, Michael Gerber's The E-Myth has a section on this.

Quite a helpful book.

It goes over it but it's kind of vague. I'm reading it right now. Awesome book.

Thanks
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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by DABK

If I recall correctly, Michael Gerber's The E-Myth has a section on this.

Quite a helpful book.

Originally Posted by shadow92

It goes over it but it's kind of vague. I'm reading it right now. Awesome book.

I felt like it was an okay book, though if I read it without all the hype and recommendations I probably would have thought it was a great book lol.

It's kind of like movies that get a bunch of hype from everyone then I go see it and its like...

That and the fact that a bunch of marketers tend to regurgitate different catch phrases from the book every single day... work on your business, not in it.. blah blah blah.. It's not the book's fault, I know. LOL.

All in all, I felt like it scratched the surface not as much depth that I wanted but maybe that was the point.

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shadow92

9 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

I felt like it was an okay book, though if I read it without all the hype and recommendations I probably would have thought it was a great book lol.

It's kind of like movies that get a bunch of hype from everyone then I go see it and its like...

That and the fact that a bunch of marketers tend to regurgitate different catch phrases from the book every single day... work on your business, not in it.. blah blah blah.. It's not the book's fault, I know. LOL.

All in all, I felt like it scratched the surface not as much depth that I wanted but maybe that was the point.

I read a bit differently than others I think. I don't typically go cover to cover and be done with it. I like to steal sections that I find important, or something that gives me an idea. It's amazing how many ideas you have when reading these kinds of books. Most people just keep reading. I stop and write it down.

Typically after I'm finished reading, I can't really tell you what the book is about, verbatim, but I can sure as hell tell you the new ideas that it sparked in my mind..

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DABK

9 years ago

It's meant for people who've just gone self-employed and want a business.

There are many that manage to never actually have a business, though they're self-employed for years and years. They have a job. They can't grow. They're overworked.

The only thing that's good is: there's cash flow and the prick who used to be your boss is not your boss now.

If you read it early enough, before you figure out the hard way a lot of things, it saves you time and headaches, vague though it may be.

Maybe you should have read it years and years ago.

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

I felt like it was an okay book, though if I read it without all the hype and recommendations I probably would have thought it was a great book lol.

It's kind of like movies that get a bunch of hype from everyone then I go see it and its like...

That and the fact that a bunch of marketers tend to regurgitate different catch phrases from the book every single day... work on your business, not in it.. blah blah blah.. It's not the book's fault, I know. LOL.

All in all, I felt like it scratched the surface not as much depth that I wanted but maybe that was the point.

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iAmNameLess

9 years ago

Originally Posted by DABK

It's meant for people who've just gone self-employed and want a business.

There are many that manage to never actually have a business, though they're self-employed for years and years. They have a job. They can't grow. They're overworked.

The only thing that's good is: there's cash flow and the prick who used to be your boss is not your boss now.

If you read it early enough, before you figure out the hard way a lot of things, it saves you time and headaches, vague though it may be.

Maybe you should have read it years and years ago.

You may be right. I think I will read it again though. It's amazing the different things you pick up when reading at different stages in life even if it is the same exact book.

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Electrical

9 years ago

Originally Posted by DABK

It's meant for people who've just gone self-employed and want a business.

There are many that manage to never actually have a business, though they're self-employed for years and years. They have a job. They can't grow. They're overworked.

The only thing that's good is: there's cash flow and the prick who used to be your boss is not your boss now.

If you read it early enough, before you figure out the hard way a lot of things, it saves you time and headaches, vague though it may be.

Maybe you should have read it years and years ago.

There are SO many of those types of people in my business. They hurt the trade because they undervalue themselves and charge so little. But since they are making money they think they are doing good. In reality they are making the same (or less) than if they were working as an employee for wages, but not having a boss makes it different so they don't care.

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misshang

9 years ago

I really appreciate this thread for myself has been experiencing issues mentioned in this thread. Thanks for all the real-life business discussion. BTW, what is MR for scraping lists? i use local lead miner and that one saves me lots of time FYI.

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misshang

9 years ago

@iAmNameless, can you send me the mailchip and FBL thing in PM?

Thx. love efficiency.

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iAmNameLess 9 years ago

Originally Posted by misshang

@iAmNameless, can you send me the mailchip and FBL thing in PM?

Thx. love efficiency.

You already have everything on it Misshang. It's in the blue print you bought!
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