In this article, I’m going to be talking about the thorny issue of revenue streams and the different types that I believe need to be created, to become both successful and stress free as a consultant or freelancer.
Typically …
If you’re asleep, you’re not earning money.
If you’re on holiday, you’re not creating for the future.
If you’re delivering services, then how on earth can you be selling?
It’s a constant conundrum. It’s a constant juggle, but there is a way around it. If you’re interested in creating a (relatively) stress free life and a more predictable, stable income, this article is for you.
Why you need to get this right
So maybe you’re already experiencing this issue. Maybe you’ve recently gone it alone and you’re trying to figure out how to manage your time. You’re questioning how to juggle the constant demands on your time about whether you need to be selling or whether you should be delivering a particular service.
It becomes quite a headache to know how best to spend your time.
If you don’t have any business coming in, then clearly, you need to be selling a hundred percent of the time. Yet, if you are completely booked for the next four weeks, how on can you also be selling for the future? There is a way around this issue and it’s something I’ve managed to achieve over the years, by creating three different types of revenue stream.
If you can do this … if you can create a consistent base level of revenue and then let it flex up and down. Beyond that, you’re able then always able to satisfy the bank manager, pay the credit card bills, put food on the table and pay the mortgage.
Once you have that baseline and you’re less worried about money coming in, anything else is, almost a bonus. When pressure is removed from your shoulders, you become more creative and you do better things for clients … you sell less hard (which is a good thing!) and you start to naturally attract business instead.
I’ve witnessed it for myself. When you have the luxury of different types of revenue coming in, everything gets easier. It’s something all consultants / freelancers should strive for.
A quick health warning – these revenue streams aren’t going to develop overnight. This is something to aim for – to have a plan for. Accept that things take time and, patience is a virtue and that all good things come to those who wait.
The holy trinity of consultant / freelancer revenue streams …
1) Services revenue
I’m sure you’re already starting to achieve in this area , or if you’re not, that has to be the starting point – swapping your time for money. Whether it be coding, whether it be design, whether it be public speaking, whatever it is, you deliver a service and people pay you for it.
2) Product revenue
The second type of revenue stream is having a product
3) Recurring revenue
The third revenue type, for me, is the Holy grail of the three – and that’s having a recurring revenue stream.
Services revenue
So services, revenue in theory, is straightforward, isn’t it? You are swapping money for the services that you offer. As I mentioned, it could be coding, it could be writing, it could be design, it could be public speaking. It doesn’t matter what it is, but you are essentially charging for blocks of time and swapping that for income, which is a great start, in the first instance.
It gives you freedom and flexibility – unless , the orders aren’t yet coming in, then of course, your bank balance sits worryingly at zero. So it’s really important to balance up selling those services and generating enquiries, with being able to deliver them in the first place.
@alisatsygankova via Twenty20
In 99% of cases, you will start by becoming a freelancer or consultant and swapping your time for money, but there is much more to achieve and you will never, I don’t think, get that absolute peace of mind if you sit back and rely on 100% services revenue,.
If you can implement the next two strategies, your life will become much easier and rewarding.
______________
Product revenue
Generating product revenue, is not going to happen overnight.
To create any form of product, takes effort. Plan to start small with something and grow from there. You shouldn’t aim to create an all singing, all dancing product on day one. In fact, my recommendation is you don’t! If you put hours and hours and hours into creating something new, which never sells, you’re pouring time down the drain – never a good thing.
There’s all kinds of different products that you can create. You can write a book. You can create some kind of download. You could create physical products. You may sell something on Amazon or eBay, even.
@lelia_milaya via Twenty20
Figure out a plan to create that product. At first it will feel overwhelming, but there’s a solution to that –
block out half a day in your diary once a week … or an evening twice a week – whatever works for you and then start creating and investing in that product in whatever shape or form it comes in.
I have a handful of products out there in the world with more coming.
As an example, I’ve two books, which I sell on Amazon. They are focused on the IT marketplace, I should tell you, you do not get rich writing a book and being a self published author! That’s not the point. They get you noticed and they do absolutely bring in a decent, regular three figure income each month as I write this in Feb 2021.
You won’t be able to live off that income immediately, but if you add that to your services revenue, and hopefully some recurring revenue, which I’ll cover in a moment, it starts to look pretty good.
So think about long term product creation and avolution. Create something which can sit on a shelf in a virtual shop for, maybe 10 years and still be relevant.
So in 10 years time, something that I wrote 10 years ago could still be earning income, and that’s really appealing. That’s quite a different approach to charging your time for money. It’s also really cool to wake up each morning to see how many books that you’ve sold 😉
Each product you create in whatever form they come, will start to make incremental changes on your income.
Digital marketplaces
Remember, it doesn’t have to be a book. Think about creating downloads, bits of code, whatever it may be. You may even consider (if you’re, if you’re talented enough), getting involved in the various marketplaces, which are out there, the digital marketplaces, such as Envato where you can create themes, graphics or video templates for sale to the world. You then take a commission from each sale, The support costs for that are relatively small.
Maybe spend. five working days, creating something of real value. That for me, is a good investment in time. The worst that can happen is that you lose five days of your time. The best that can happen is that there is no limit to the sales you can generate.
Package your services
The other thing I’ve seen people do successfully, is to package your services into a product.
Use a marketplace like Fiverr or PeoplePerHour, where you offer something specific – a ring fenced service. It’s essentially a very, small packaged element of your service, which is perhaps templated in some way behind the scenes, allowing you to speed up the delivery of that service.
I provide a packaged service in conjunction wth my Helpdesk Habits (recurring revenue) programme. I deliver an hour’s introductory session via Zoom to a group for a fixed fee. It’s a templated presentation which I customise for each customer.
So, be creative, there’s plenty of products you can create which link to your niche or to your marketplace, which will in turn help you to boost your services revenue too.
Definitely make sure there is a link – it doesn’t make sense to create a product which is completely tangential to your core services.
The Holy grail of revenue creation for me, is recurring revenue – where customers pay for assets / a service every month or year.
Creating a service, which has recurring revenue is the business model for the future.
I’ve managed to create two recurring revenue businesses – my soft skills for engineers Helpdesk Habits programme and my online fitness programme. We offer free pilates workouts to drive interest.
We’ve of course seen the likes of Microsoft and Adobe do this over the last few years. If it works for the big guys, why shouldn’t it work for the small guys too?
@jijieforsythe via Twenty20
Microsoft pivoted a few years back. They saw the power of recurring revenue. You used to buy a copy of Office and it would sit on your desktop for three or four or five or ten years, and eventually you’d have to spend another hundred pounds, a hundred dollars, whatever it may be, for a new CD.
Microsoft recognized they needed to change their business model. With Microsoft 365 – they have a recurring revenue theme and very little out of date software to support – double whammy!
My personal experience
It’s harder than it looks and it takes real effort to run and grow a recurring revenue business, but if you can crack it, then it’s one of the most consistent forms of revenue you can ever have. You can actually drag the row of your cashflow along by a good few months, because you pretty much know the flow of income.
Once again, there is no upside limiting it.
If you can create recurring revenue elements to your solopreneur business, on top of your product and services revenue, you can start to see how you can get that consistency of revenue over the months.
I’ve talked about membership sites, where you’re, adding content to a site on a regular basis, within your niche.
I would also call YouTube ad revenue a recurring revenue model too, but you do have to keep contributing content to the platform. Remember you are not in control of that content. YouTube can change the rules, any time they wish. An old colleague of mine has always talked about Owning the Racecourse. He is right. Anything you build on other platforms is at your own risk.
If a membership site is too tall an order for you – then you can still get creative – why not consider reselling other people’s services?
Consider face-to-face physical sales, where you’re taking a commission. If you are constantly referring somebody else’s service or a piece of software, consider asking for regular commission. Most people will have no problem in paying you for referring their services. Have a think about the sort of people in your network and whether you could resell some of the services they sell.
There’s plenty of products and affiliate schemes out there – including the likes of Amazon. There’s a great list of affiliate marketplaces here.
It’s not easy to make big bucks, however, if you’ve got traffic coming to your site, a few links here and there, coupled with a few promotions and suddenly there’s a couple of hundred pounds or dollars coming in every month. Do you see the trend in this article? Aiming small initially, begins to add up over time.
My personal experience – SaaS
The ultimate recurring revenue model is to create a Software as a Service business. This isn’t for the faint hearted!
I co-founded a service back in 2010 called Customer Thermometer, which was the world’s first 1-click feedback survey tool.
I sat in the room I’m writing this in now, with some very big pieces of paper, over 10 years ago now and we created a service which customers have bought and bought and bought, from very small businesses right the way up to, big corporate accounts. With that comes the responsibility of developing software, keeping data safe and creating a team. It’s not easy.
This concept also moves away from the solopreneur model, but there are plenty of very, very small SaaS businesses out there, run by a single person and they’re enjoying plenty of success. If you want more on that, I would recommend the Indie Hackers website. There’s people creating and building software businesses in public, right around the world. There’s plenty of ideas, which perhaps aren’t ever going to fly, but there’s plenty of good ones too.
Get inspired, if this is something that you’re interested in.
______________
The key to getting started
So to conclude, three revenue streams is all about balance.
Start with services – that’s what you know, but think quickly about ways of building a product and plan for the future.
It might take you a year or two to figure out a subscription or recurring revenue business. Which is OK – but keep it on your radar.
Do these three things and you will reap the dividends that it wil bring.
Don’t be put off by the effort. Instead, focus initially on bringing in the low hanging fruit, and focus on keeping your family afloat.
Once you’ve got that in place, start to carve out time to create that product and recurring revenue business and experiment. Talk to people, involve other people, partner with people, do what you need to do.
If you stick at services revenue, life and finances will always be up and down – you will never get that consistency of revenue. As a result, you’ll always have that little bit of extra pressure on your shoulders.
If you can create those other revenue streams, life will become much easier.
Now – stop reading and go and make it happen!
Prefer to watch Mark talking this through?
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/SS-logo-medium.png202600Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2021-02-08 16:34:132021-02-08 16:47:13Solopreneurship – why you need these three different revenue streams
It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything worthwhile. With two not-best-selling books behind me (Helpdesk Habits & MSP Secrets Revealed) – I have taken a break and it now feels like the right time to start writing again but in a different format this time.
It’s time to launch Solopreneur Secrets. Something I’ve been planning for a while and something which has been burning inside me for even longer.
I’ve been wanting to share … wanting to help others … wanting to “shortcut experience” for would be solopreneurs both older and younger than me.
The world is upside at the moment (Feb 2021) and so many people are looking for alternative sources of income … to launch a side project … to take control of their lives a little. Employment doesn’t necessarily allow you to do that.
Self-employment does.
It’s not easy. It can be emotional. There are many ups and many downs. It’s scary, however it’s incredibly rewarding when you get it right, get consistent and have a plan and a vision.
Solopreneur Secrets will be a whole series of essays, tips, advice and videos to help you do what you want to do. It might be a little random along the way, but it’ll be fun.
I’ve been an Entrepreneur / Solopreneur since 2002, when I founded my first design agency, Twist Media.
Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to exit two businesses, sell another, have meetings at Facebook HQ, create content in Melbourne, speak at conferences in Las Vegas, be the proud owner of a YouTube video with 4 million views and I currently split my time between the IT and fitness worlds. It’s a heady mix.
It’s been one heck of a ride and a few days ago marked my 10,000th day in business.
It’s therefore time to start getting down on virtual paper, some of the things I’ve learnt along the way.
I don’t live in a gold castle. I don’t have rocket and battery companies. I do however have a very nice life.
My life is balanced. I tend not to get stressed and my family and I don’t want for anything. I see too many people shooting for the stars … aiming to be billionaires, when actually generating several thousands of pounds or dollars, under your own terms each year might actually be all you need at the moment to really appreciate life.
Whatever situation you’re in and wherever you’re heading – I hope you enjoy the ride and I hope I can help a little.
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/SS-logo-medium.png202600Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2021-02-03 16:37:022021-02-03 16:37:02Solopreneur Secrets is born
We all have stories hidden away. Stories which define us. Stories which make us stronger. This is mine.
Buttocks & blood tests
One morning in July 1997, I woke up with a pain in my right buttock.
I was struggling to walk and had to get myself to the doctors to figure things out. This was made more complicated by the fact my girlfriend* and I had moved to Sydney four months earlier and being ‘male’, I of course hadn’t even considered registering with a doctor.
The last thing the company doctor said to me during my medical, before leaving the UK was, “You have medical insurance during your secondment – here’s your BUPA gold card – you won’t need it – but just in case.”
Four months into the secondment and two days after an initial visit to the doctor, I was sat in front of a specialist haemotologist. My white blood cell and platelet counts were at 10% of normal levels. I was seriously ill.
I asked him, “Am I going to die?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at his desk.
His reply has never left me.
On 31 August 1997 (the same day Princess Diana died), I had doctors and nurses hugging me with delight in my hospital room. Despite being minus a spleen (a much over-rated organ), I was finally diagnosed with the incredibly rare Hairycell Leukaemia, which generally affects people over 50. I was 26.
They were hugging me, because the two other possibilities were much, much worse.
We were all so thankful it was ‘just’ Hairycell Leukaemia
I was treated initially in Sydney.
18 months later, the disease returned when we were back in the UK. I was treated again.
It then returned again in October 2003, a few weeks before my son was born. Really not part of the plan.
I was referred to the Royal Marsden hospital in London – a specialist cancer hospital, where I was put on a trial combination of chemotherapy and monoclonal antibodies. The hope was that 1+1 = 5. It turned out the hope was correct and this trial has since turned into one of the standard treatments for treating the disease long term.
In January 2004, it was announced that I was in complete remission for the first time.
Fast forward to February 2020 and I’m still clear of the disease, having been looked after by the amazing staff at the Royal Marsden ever since.
I visit twice a year for blood tests and consultations. I sit in the waiting room for an hour, counting my blessings and keeping my fingers crossed.
It’s as sobering as it gets.
It makes me thankful. It makes me so grateful for everything around me. I get to reaffirm my mantra, to live every day.
I’m going to be running the London Marathon in April
It’s time for me to help this amazing hospital in a small way.
My last marathon was in 2007. I’m now 13 years older (and you’d think wiser) and I’m going to run another.
I’m doing it as a personal challenge as well as to raise a ton of cash to help those in need … to help find cures … and to generate hope for those who need it most. I’m one of a team of about 35 and I’m slightly terrified.
If I’ve ever helped you, worked with you, got drunk with you, paid you, laughed with you, delivered something for you, filmed you, interviewed you, measured your customer satisfaction, delivered a speech to you or referred you, I would be SO grateful if you’d consider sponsoring my endeavours with a few pounds / dollars / zen / euros / zloty.
With the lousy GBP exchange rate, your euros / dollars and zen will go a VERY long way to help those, who’ve helped me. If you’re here in the UK, your pounds still work very well.
Spare a thought too for everyone running, walking or crawling the 26.2 miles around London on 26th April 2020 and raising billions for the causes which mean so much to them.
And so it all began on the morning of 18th September 2011, when my wife and I sat and watched the Bupa Great North Run in our dressing gowns whilst having a relaxed Sunday morning.
Before the race started, as ever in true BBC style, wonderful tales of heroism, courage and support were told by everyday people, all running for their cause – all running for something they believed in passionately and all doing something positive to help that cause.
Listening to their stories and watching them run put me to shame that morning.
We’d just come back from a pretty special summer holiday. We live incredibly privileged lives and it hit me squarely between the eyes that it was time to take some action, raise some money and generally give something back to the charity that in an indirect way had saved my life 15 years’ ago.
That morning we hatched a plan for me to run four half marathons in a month. Not ground breaking by any stretch of the imagination – but challenging enough for me. What would make it even more special however would be to run it with a group of friends and persuade them to do the challenge too.
On 17th November 2011, after much research, thinking and fine tuning of my pitch, I assembled 10 “dad’s” in our local pub and waited till pint #3 before pitching the challenge.
So, how did we get on?
Our challenge is now over. 6 of us ran every race, one of us kayaked two half marathons and 10 others were involved in single races, which was no mean feat. Somehow I managed to run 4 personal bests in a row and am now fitter than I’ve been for a long time which was the icing on the cake really!
I was somewhat surprised by us being joined by 7 of my school mates, stunning weather, gorgeous scenery, the hardest mile of the 52 in Henley Hill, a great celebration afterwards.
Wind forward to Friday 19th October 2012
We celebrated the end of our challenge by gathering runner and supporters at the Thames Riviera Hotel in Maidenhead. It was a great night to reflect on the last few months of training and the pain of racing 52 miles across that month. Everyone had their own stories to tell and everyone had a lot of special memories. Some of us were even sad it was over!
I did stand on a chair and make a speech I’d spent most of the day writing – it was predominately to say thank you to everyone, and to award some certificates – I’d even laminated myself…
I also wanted to announce a total (which is still going up)… across 242 individual donations, including gift aid, we had exceeded our target of raising £10,783.20. However, in addition, I was delighted to announce a matched donation from BP (thanks to Simon Hodgkinson – one of their employees was part of the team )of £2,783.
There were gasps from the audience…
But even better than that, Paul Johnson then stood up… he’d applied for a grant from the foundation of his company Allergan (Allergan International Foundation) and had been successful. He proudly handed over a cheque for £10,000, making our total raised so far £23,566.
Donations on the night took the total to £23,758– which we were all thrilled with.
And so what a journey it’s been. What a lot of fond memories and most importantly, what a lot of money raised.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Let the next adventure be as fun…
Mark.
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpg00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2019-11-27 20:44:412019-11-27 20:44:414 half marathons in a month:
I spend hours convincing clients that less is more.
Videos need to be shorter not longer.
Corporate messages need to be one sentence, not one paragraph.
It’s not about how much detail you can add, it’s about how much you can take away.
Thermomostats can be made simpler… who’d have thought it? Proves a point.
Blogs can be simple too – 37 Signals are the masters of clearing away clutter.
Even Sky, the giant corporate, have done a great job of keeping things simple on their ‘kit’ page.
We’ve worked hard at it too – our customer satisfaction survey web application, Customer Thermometer asks just one question.
As opposed to 20.
We’re constantly told, do one thing and do it well … keep things simple … walk before you can run
We so often ignore this advice, because it’s the easy way out to make things more complex.
Life has become very complicated. Too many choices and too much clutter.
How refreshing it is when a business does make things simple, removes that clutter.
As a result, you get drawn in, you become engaged. You’ve less to process.
It takes huge amount of effort to get good at it.
Some businesses manage it. Do you?
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2013-06-13 10:30:302019-07-03 16:29:46Examples of simplicity in business
I was invited to a conference in New York this coming weekend, which is a lovely thing – however just not practical for me at this moment…
The conference is the first of its kind dedicated to patients and doctors dealing with a disease I’m rather close to – something called Hairy Cell Leukaemia.
Because I was unable to attend, I offered to put together a video of my story – after all, it is what we do most days of the week, except for me, I’m normally the one asking the questions. Last week, I swapped roles and gave some answers.
A big public thank you to my colleague Richard Spindler for putting this together for me.
I thought it might be interesting to share:
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2013-05-08 21:38:012019-04-03 10:00:25Why I say “It’s not a rehearsal”
When it comes to technology – the answer to “Can you do this…?” is always yes – it’s simply a case of how long or how much.
It’s only Tuesday and I’ve had an amazing week when it comes to technology research. I will save some of my research for another day – but today I’ve cracked something I’m extremely proud of – and I appear to have come full circle.
Back in 1996, I worked for the UK’s largest telco – BT. It’s even possible some of you reading this will have worked with me back then! One of my roles was as an International voice networking specialist – working with our global division to provide sales support to the likes of Hertz (memories of Oklahoma City) and advising on the latest and greatest call centre technology to distribute calls around the world to different call centres.
100’s if not 1000’s of engineers were involved in running our global network and switching voice calls around the world back then, according to time of day or menu options was hard and complicated and BT charged a lot of money for it.
Reason #1278 to love the Internet: Yesterday, I set up the equivalent network in about an hour for $20/month.
I have two businesses and until recently, our web application, Customer Thermometer has email support only. We’ve had a number of ‘complaints’ we aren’t easy to get hold of – many of our US customers like to pick up the phone and talk to a real person (even if they’re British!) and one of our US colleagues decided it was time to implement a toll free ‘1800’ type number.
It’s not something I’d ever researched – yet I knew what I wanted – a number in the UK and a number in the US which would arrive at the same place – press ‘1’ for sales and ‘2’ for tech support… depending on which of the team were awake and on duty – the system should then route the call seamlessly… if no one was able to take a call – voicemail kicks in. I of course wanted to control all of that from some kind of web control panel and have complete flexibility.
Too much to ask?
What I wanted is wanted by hundreds of businesses around the world every day I would imagine – and I guess it sounds simple on paper – however when you stop to think about it – have you any idea how complicated that set up is!
It was time to Google: how to set up a toll free number.
Approximately an hour of research later, I hit the jackpot and want to recommend this company to you.
www.Tollfreeforwarding.com provide an online virtual control panel for setting up your toll free numbers.
You select a US toll free number and start your 1 month free trial. Inbound calls are then routed to your cell/mobile or chosen landline depending on how you set them up. You can then add in a UK toll free (or any other number for that matter).
Once set up, there are then multiple options available:
You can switch in a voice menu (which I recorded in my best voiceover voice – available on request) to distribute those calls, depending on the expertise around and available:
Voicemail is amazing – if someone leaves a message – you can hit play in your control panel to hear it … PLUS it emails you the voicemail as a wav file.
Calls are fully itemised:
Calls can be routed, depending on time of day / day of week:
Pricing
You pay a line rental every month for the service and each toll free number of $20 (starter) and then pay for routed calls separately. To route a call from a US toll free to a UK mobile is just 10c/minute… very reasonable. All features etc are fully inclusive.
You should know – I’m not on commission – this isn’t an affiliate sale – I just like to promote what works, is great value and could well answer many consultant’s questions…
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2013-04-16 18:39:462013-04-16 18:39:46How to set up a toll free number for your website
Since 7th January 2013 when I started back at work after Christmas, a LOT has happened. Not all of it good, but mostly. I’ve learnt, rediscovered and been reminded of a lot of things. 79 days is a very long time in business these days – at a guess I’d reckon it’s the equivalent of about 300 days in 1995. The pace of life and business is relentless and it’s not slowing any time soon.
I run two businesses – a video production business and a customer satisfaction application as well as blogging for fun here. The old adage of focusing on one thing has passed me by. Instead, I’ve actively chosen ‘variation’, which means I jump out of bed in the morning – for me the ultimate test of happiness. One day I’m driving clients around Milan, coming face to face with trams. Other days I’m working with programmers to add new functionality to Customer Thermometer. Other days I’m actively managing the cashflow.
I have two children, a house which needs constant attention and an amazing group of friends with an active social life. Life is not dull. I rarely spend time collapsed in a heap watching TV in the evening – there’s always something to do.
As a result of this madness, I’m exposed to a lot of situations and I find myself constantly learning, which I love. This post is pure self-indulgence. It’s a reminder to me of what’s happened in this last quarter and I’m going to tweak what I’m doing based on what I now know.
I hope you pick out a couple of things from it and I hope you disagree with some too.
1) People buy from people, not ‘salespeople’.
2) Having read WOMBAT selling (free download here), it was great to able to ratify that people cannot be sold to, nor ‘closed’. Prospects will move at their pace. All you can do is to help them to buy.
3) One bad day or week doesn’t mean you don’t have a business and you should be throwing in the towel.
4) I am constantly reminded of the effects of implementing Newton’s 3rd Law. If you take action, stuff happens. The great thing about life in business is that you don’t always know what the ‘stuff’ will turn out to be. If you sit around waiting for ‘stuff’ to happen, it won’t.
5) It’s amazing to hear someone telling you how your web application has changed their business. Makes the late nights all worthwhile.
6) Victory boards are cool… write down a list of week’s achievements at the end of the week, and consider what you’re going to be adding to it during the week. They give you focus.
7) If you don’t have a plan, you’ve no idea where you are heading.
8) Plans can be changed.
9) If you’re in a services business, go beyond the call of duty for your clients. It pays off. ‘Over deliver and under promise’ is a cliché, but it’s one of the best ones out there.
10) Writing a book is hard and I’m currently failing at it, because it’s not a priority. I’ll be back though.
11) Patience can be a virtue, but know when to give up and know when someone is wasting your time, or is never going to deliver – stop kidding yourself.
12) Celebrate success. Curry and Champagne on a Wednesday night is totally acceptable.
13) ‘Networking’ isn’t something you do once a month with a warm glass of white wine in a room full of strangers. The ability to connect, communicate and introduce people I’m starting to think is a naturally occurring phenomenon. I’m not convinced it can be taught, but I’m sure some would disagree. Whatever your take, it’s an essential part of business and I strive to get better at it, daily.
14) Never, ever, ever, ever, ever ignore a gut feeling. Act on it, or you’ll regret it.
17) Be honest and say ‘no’ when the deal isn’t right. You’ll be thanked for your honesty and you’ll be remembered when the time is right.
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2013-03-27 08:59:502013-03-27 08:59:5017 things I’ve learnt between Christmas and Easter 2013
Last week, I arranged a few drinks with some friends. In a brewery. Yes, we went to the absolute source of the beer and tasted it, whilst new batches were being fermented all around us. Of course, it was a great night – we learnt a huge amount about how to make beer, agreed and disagreed on the various tastes and all in all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, as you might expect.
What I hadn’t banked on however, was a lesson in business alongside the fun and frolics.
The Windsor and Eton brewery was set up 3 years ago. It’s one of over 1,000 microbreweries here in the UK now – and so it’s a competitive business. It was set up by 4 partners, and interestingly, one of them, Bob Morrison, is a marketing expert. It’s interesting – because, whilst of course you need to be able to brew great tasting beer, with competition all around, it’s how you differentiate, which gets you noticed and is one of the reasons they chose Windsor as its base – and leveraged its already amazing brand.
They set up their brewery from scratch in 7 weeks, without borrowings and their ambition is simple:
“to make Windsor famous again as a brewer of some of the finest and most talked about beers in the country.”
Note they use the word ‘ambition’ and there is no mention of growth by 10% year on year within that phrase.
I spent a while talking with Bob and became fascinated.
They’ve grown tremendously in the last 3 years – have doubled their brewing capacity and are bursting the seams of their backstreet warehouse, nestled amongst the terraced houses of Windsor. When we talked about their plans for the coming years, it was simple –
“we want to stay small”.
How refreshing.
How great to hear that a thriving business has an ambition to stay small, to keep niche, to retain quality, to excel at customer service, to not borrow and to stay true to their core values.
The conversation continued.
Staying small doesn’t mean you can’t grow of course. You can still grow (because, if you don’t grow, you die) – but in different ways, to keep their own personal interests high and to challenge them individually. In my world – it’s adding new features. In their world, they’d like to bottle their own beer and they’d like to move to kegs as well as barrels (oh yes – I know all the lingo now).
I related to this concept and it gave me great confidence. My video production business is going really well. I have a great team of people around me – but I made a conscious decision last year that I don’t want to walk into an office full of people (again) and feel the pressure of paying multiple salaries and mortgages. I want to stay small, but develop an amazing trusted virtual team who experience other projects, outside of my business, to keep them fully rounded and the pressure off all of us.
I want to say thanks to The Windsor and Eton brewery guys who have helped me to ratify my vision.
It really is OK to stay small, but please, be perfectly formed.
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2013-03-19 08:36:002019-04-03 10:49:29It’s OK to stay small
I buy a lot of ‘stuff’ online, mainly because it’s a) cheaper and b) saves me time and c) why leave the house when I don’t have to?! I have huge sympathy for the UK High St, however, as I’m often told, business is business.
About a year ago I was told about the TopCashback site by a friend of mine. He runs his own IT business, buys IT equipment on behalf of his clients regularly, and had made thousands just by buying the ‘stuff’ via a cashback site.
Before you take a look – let me describe it.
1) You need to buy something online and either already know which website to buy from OR you’d like some help in finding somewhere.
3) Type in the name of the retailer or item you’re looking for. (Examples include Apple, Insurance, ISAs, Sky, Vodafone, Ebuyer, Dell, PC World…) It’s brilliant when you’re looking to change car / house insurance for example.
4) It’ll list the retailer (they have 100’s) and make some recommendations too.
5) Next to each one, they’ll then list the amount of cashback you’ll receive if you click their link. PC World is currently at 7%, Vodafone currently offering £151 cashback on a 12 month contract. Legal and General – £60 cashback on home insurance.
6) You’ll then be taken to that retailer to search and buy what you’re after
7) Days, weeks or sometimes months later – you will receive that %age back in cold, hard cash or topped up Amazon vouchers.
There are no catches, it truly is that simple and frankly, if you don’t use it when you buy online, you are losing money.
How does it work?
When things sound too good to be true, they often are – so let me explain their business model.
I’m sure you’re aware of the concept of affiliate marketing. If you click on a banner or link which eventually leads you to make a purchase from that advertiser, the person hosting that banner or link gets a %age payment. This cashback site is an affiliate and has affiliate relationships with 100’s of retailers. Here’s the clever bit. Rather than collecting the affiliate revenue themselves, they pass it back to the ‘clicker’ – ie you. They make their money through the advertising on their site. They are currently Alexa ranked 9,166 and so get thousands of visitors/day – making their business model viable.
So – it’s a no brainer isn’t it?
Go take a look. It has genuinely made me £300 in Amazon vouchers in the last few months – simply by remembering to click their bookmark first AND it’s also given me some great retailers I wouldn’t have visited without their help.
It’s good to be transparent – and so if you do visit the site, sign up and make your first purchase through them – I will be ‘thanked’ by them and £10 will be added to my account. It’s called viral marketing – and you could do the same with your friends.
Hopefully if you like what I’ve been up to on this site over the last few years – you’ll be happy to see me earning 3.21 tall,skinny, decaf mochaccinos.
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Copeman-site-logo.jpgMark Copeman2013-03-07 08:00:572013-03-07 08:00:57How I earned £300 cashback in 6 months (without trying)
Solopreneurship – why you need these three different revenue streams
in Solopreneur SecretsIn this article, I’m going to be talking about the thorny issue of revenue streams and the different types that I believe need to be created, to become both successful and stress free as a consultant or freelancer.
Typically …
If you’re asleep, you’re not earning money.
If you’re on holiday, you’re not creating for the future.
If you’re delivering services, then how on earth can you be selling?
It’s a constant conundrum. It’s a constant juggle, but there is a way around it. If you’re interested in creating a (relatively) stress free life and a more predictable, stable income, this article is for you.
Why you need to get this right
So maybe you’re already experiencing this issue. Maybe you’ve recently gone it alone and you’re trying to figure out how to manage your time. You’re questioning how to juggle the constant demands on your time about whether you need to be selling or whether you should be delivering a particular service.
It becomes quite a headache to know how best to spend your time.
If you don’t have any business coming in, then clearly, you need to be selling a hundred percent of the time. Yet, if you are completely booked for the next four weeks, how on can you also be selling for the future? There is a way around this issue and it’s something I’ve managed to achieve over the years, by creating three different types of revenue stream.
Once you have that baseline and you’re less worried about money coming in, anything else is, almost a bonus. When pressure is removed from your shoulders, you become more creative and you do better things for clients … you sell less hard (which is a good thing!) and you start to naturally attract business instead.
I’ve witnessed it for myself. When you have the luxury of different types of revenue coming in, everything gets easier. It’s something all consultants / freelancers should strive for.
A quick health warning – these revenue streams aren’t going to develop overnight. This is something to aim for – to have a plan for. Accept that things take time and, patience is a virtue and that all good things come to those who wait.
The holy trinity of consultant / freelancer revenue streams …
1) Services revenue
I’m sure you’re already starting to achieve in this area , or if you’re not, that has to be the starting point – swapping your time for money. Whether it be coding, whether it be design, whether it be public speaking, whatever it is, you deliver a service and people pay you for it.
2) Product revenue
The second type of revenue stream is having a product
3) Recurring revenue
The third revenue type, for me, is the Holy grail of the three – and that’s having a recurring revenue stream.
Services revenue
So services, revenue in theory, is straightforward, isn’t it? You are swapping money for the services that you offer. As I mentioned, it could be coding, it could be writing, it could be design, it could be public speaking. It doesn’t matter what it is, but you are essentially charging for blocks of time and swapping that for income, which is a great start, in the first instance.
It gives you freedom and flexibility – unless , the orders aren’t yet coming in, then of course, your bank balance sits worryingly at zero. So it’s really important to balance up selling those services and generating enquiries, with being able to deliver them in the first place.
@alisatsygankova via Twenty20
In 99% of cases, you will start by becoming a freelancer or consultant and swapping your time for money, but there is much more to achieve and you will never, I don’t think, get that absolute peace of mind if you sit back and rely on 100% services revenue,.
If you can implement the next two strategies, your life will become much easier and rewarding.
______________
Product revenue
Generating product revenue, is not going to happen overnight.
To create any form of product, takes effort. Plan to start small with something and grow from there. You shouldn’t aim to create an all singing, all dancing product on day one. In fact, my recommendation is you don’t! If you put hours and hours and hours into creating something new, which never sells, you’re pouring time down the drain – never a good thing.
There’s all kinds of different products that you can create. You can write a book. You can create some kind of download. You could create physical products. You may sell something on Amazon or eBay, even.
@lelia_milaya via Twenty20
Figure out a plan to create that product. At first it will feel overwhelming, but there’s a solution to that –
I have a handful of products out there in the world with more coming.
As an example, I’ve two books, which I sell on Amazon. They are focused on the IT marketplace, I should tell you, you do not get rich writing a book and being a self published author! That’s not the point. They get you noticed and they do absolutely bring in a decent, regular three figure income each month as I write this in Feb 2021.
You won’t be able to live off that income immediately, but if you add that to your services revenue, and hopefully some recurring revenue, which I’ll cover in a moment, it starts to look pretty good.
So think about long term product creation and avolution. Create something which can sit on a shelf in a virtual shop for, maybe 10 years and still be relevant.
So in 10 years time, something that I wrote 10 years ago could still be earning income, and that’s really appealing. That’s quite a different approach to charging your time for money. It’s also really cool to wake up each morning to see how many books that you’ve sold 😉
Each product you create in whatever form they come, will start to make incremental changes on your income.
Digital marketplaces
Remember, it doesn’t have to be a book. Think about creating downloads, bits of code, whatever it may be. You may even consider (if you’re, if you’re talented enough), getting involved in the various marketplaces, which are out there, the digital marketplaces, such as Envato where you can create themes, graphics or video templates for sale to the world. You then take a commission from each sale, The support costs for that are relatively small.
Maybe spend. five working days, creating something of real value. That for me, is a good investment in time. The worst that can happen is that you lose five days of your time. The best that can happen is that there is no limit to the sales you can generate.
Package your services
The other thing I’ve seen people do successfully, is to package your services into a product.
Use a marketplace like Fiverr or PeoplePerHour, where you offer something specific – a ring fenced service. It’s essentially a very, small packaged element of your service, which is perhaps templated in some way behind the scenes, allowing you to speed up the delivery of that service.
I provide a packaged service in conjunction wth my Helpdesk Habits (recurring revenue) programme. I deliver an hour’s introductory session via Zoom to a group for a fixed fee. It’s a templated presentation which I customise for each customer.
I also have another packaged product – a customer video testimonial service – Tech Testimonials.
So, be creative, there’s plenty of products you can create which link to your niche or to your marketplace, which will in turn help you to boost your services revenue too.
Definitely make sure there is a link – it doesn’t make sense to create a product which is completely tangential to your core services.
Daniel Priestly talks about this area in his Key Person of Influence book. An essential read.
______________
Recurring revenue
The Holy grail of revenue creation for me, is recurring revenue – where customers pay for assets / a service every month or year.
Creating a service, which has recurring revenue is the business model for the future.
I’ve managed to create two recurring revenue businesses – my soft skills for engineers Helpdesk Habits programme and my online fitness programme. We offer free pilates workouts to drive interest.
We’ve of course seen the likes of Microsoft and Adobe do this over the last few years. If it works for the big guys, why shouldn’t it work for the small guys too?
@jijieforsythe via Twenty20
Microsoft pivoted a few years back. They saw the power of recurring revenue. You used to buy a copy of Office and it would sit on your desktop for three or four or five or ten years, and eventually you’d have to spend another hundred pounds, a hundred dollars, whatever it may be, for a new CD.
Microsoft recognized they needed to change their business model. With Microsoft 365 – they have a recurring revenue theme and very little out of date software to support – double whammy!
My personal experience
It’s harder than it looks and it takes real effort to run and grow a recurring revenue business, but if you can crack it, then it’s one of the most consistent forms of revenue you can ever have. You can actually drag the row of your cashflow along by a good few months, because you pretty much know the flow of income.
Once again, there is no upside limiting it.
If you can create recurring revenue elements to your solopreneur business, on top of your product and services revenue, you can start to see how you can get that consistency of revenue over the months.
I’ve talked about membership sites, where you’re, adding content to a site on a regular basis, within your niche.
I would also call YouTube ad revenue a recurring revenue model too, but you do have to keep contributing content to the platform. Remember you are not in control of that content. YouTube can change the rules, any time they wish. An old colleague of mine has always talked about Owning the Racecourse. He is right. Anything you build on other platforms is at your own risk.
If a membership site is too tall an order for you – then you can still get creative – why not consider reselling other people’s services?
Consider face-to-face physical sales, where you’re taking a commission. If you are constantly referring somebody else’s service or a piece of software, consider asking for regular commission. Most people will have no problem in paying you for referring their services. Have a think about the sort of people in your network and whether you could resell some of the services they sell.
There’s plenty of products and affiliate schemes out there – including the likes of Amazon. There’s a great list of affiliate marketplaces here.
It’s not easy to make big bucks, however, if you’ve got traffic coming to your site, a few links here and there, coupled with a few promotions and suddenly there’s a couple of hundred pounds or dollars coming in every month. Do you see the trend in this article? Aiming small initially, begins to add up over time.
My personal experience – SaaS
The ultimate recurring revenue model is to create a Software as a Service business. This isn’t for the faint hearted!
I co-founded a service back in 2010 called Customer Thermometer, which was the world’s first 1-click feedback survey tool.
I sat in the room I’m writing this in now, with some very big pieces of paper, over 10 years ago now and we created a service which customers have bought and bought and bought, from very small businesses right the way up to, big corporate accounts. With that comes the responsibility of developing software, keeping data safe and creating a team. It’s not easy.
This concept also moves away from the solopreneur model, but there are plenty of very, very small SaaS businesses out there, run by a single person and they’re enjoying plenty of success. If you want more on that, I would recommend the Indie Hackers website. There’s people creating and building software businesses in public, right around the world. There’s plenty of ideas, which perhaps aren’t ever going to fly, but there’s plenty of good ones too.
Get inspired, if this is something that you’re interested in.
______________
The key to getting started
So to conclude, three revenue streams is all about balance.
Start with services – that’s what you know, but think quickly about ways of building a product and plan for the future.
It might take you a year or two to figure out a subscription or recurring revenue business. Which is OK – but keep it on your radar.
Do these three things and you will reap the dividends that it wil bring.
Don’t be put off by the effort. Instead, focus initially on bringing in the low hanging fruit, and focus on keeping your family afloat.
Once you’ve got that in place, start to carve out time to create that product and recurring revenue business and experiment. Talk to people, involve other people, partner with people, do what you need to do.
If you stick at services revenue, life and finances will always be up and down – you will never get that consistency of revenue. As a result, you’ll always have that little bit of extra pressure on your shoulders.
If you can create those other revenue streams, life will become much easier.
Now – stop reading and go and make it happen!
Prefer to watch Mark talking this through?
Solopreneur Secrets is born
in Solopreneur SecretsIt’s been a long time since I’ve written anything worthwhile. With two not-best-selling books behind me (Helpdesk Habits & MSP Secrets Revealed) – I have taken a break and it now feels like the right time to start writing again but in a different format this time.
It’s time to launch Solopreneur Secrets. Something I’ve been planning for a while and something which has been burning inside me for even longer.
I’ve been wanting to share … wanting to help others … wanting to “shortcut experience” for would be solopreneurs both older and younger than me.
The world is upside at the moment (Feb 2021) and so many people are looking for alternative sources of income … to launch a side project … to take control of their lives a little. Employment doesn’t necessarily allow you to do that.
Self-employment does.
It’s not easy. It can be emotional. There are many ups and many downs. It’s scary, however it’s incredibly rewarding when you get it right, get consistent and have a plan and a vision.
Solopreneur Secrets will be a whole series of essays, tips, advice and videos to help you do what you want to do. It might be a little random along the way, but it’ll be fun.
I’ve been an Entrepreneur / Solopreneur since 2002, when I founded my first design agency, Twist Media.
Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to exit two businesses, sell another, have meetings at Facebook HQ, create content in Melbourne, speak at conferences in Las Vegas, be the proud owner of a YouTube video with 4 million views and I currently split my time between the IT and fitness worlds. It’s a heady mix.
It’s been one heck of a ride and a few days ago marked my 10,000th day in business.
It’s therefore time to start getting down on virtual paper, some of the things I’ve learnt along the way.
I don’t live in a gold castle. I don’t have rocket and battery companies. I do however have a very nice life.
My life is balanced. I tend not to get stressed and my family and I don’t want for anything. I see too many people shooting for the stars … aiming to be billionaires, when actually generating several thousands of pounds or dollars, under your own terms each year might actually be all you need at the moment to really appreciate life.
Whatever situation you’re in and wherever you’re heading – I hope you enjoy the ride and I hope I can help a little.
Why I’m running the London Marathon 2020
in NewsSPOILER ALERT: THIS ENDS WELL
We all have stories hidden away. Stories which define us. Stories which make us stronger. This is mine.
Buttocks & blood tests
One morning in July 1997, I woke up with a pain in my right buttock.
I was struggling to walk and had to get myself to the doctors to figure things out. This was made more complicated by the fact my girlfriend* and I had moved to Sydney four months earlier and being ‘male’, I of course hadn’t even considered registering with a doctor.
The last thing the company doctor said to me during my medical, before leaving the UK was, “You have medical insurance during your secondment – here’s your BUPA gold card – you won’t need it – but just in case.”
Four months into the secondment and two days after an initial visit to the doctor, I was sat in front of a specialist haemotologist. My white blood cell and platelet counts were at 10% of normal levels. I was seriously ill.
I asked him, “Am I going to die?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at his desk.
His reply has never left me.
On 31 August 1997 (the same day Princess Diana died), I had doctors and nurses hugging me with delight in my hospital room. Despite being minus a spleen (a much over-rated organ), I was finally diagnosed with the incredibly rare Hairycell Leukaemia, which generally affects people over 50. I was 26.
They were hugging me, because the two other possibilities were much, much worse.
We were all so thankful it was ‘just’ Hairycell Leukaemia
I was treated initially in Sydney.
18 months later, the disease returned when we were back in the UK. I was treated again.
It then returned again in October 2003, a few weeks before my son was born. Really not part of the plan.
I was referred to the Royal Marsden hospital in London – a specialist cancer hospital, where I was put on a trial combination of chemotherapy and monoclonal antibodies. The hope was that 1+1 = 5. It turned out the hope was correct and this trial has since turned into one of the standard treatments for treating the disease long term.
In January 2004, it was announced that I was in complete remission for the first time.
Fast forward to February 2020 and I’m still clear of the disease, having been looked after by the amazing staff at the Royal Marsden ever since.
I visit twice a year for blood tests and consultations. I sit in the waiting room for an hour, counting my blessings and keeping my fingers crossed.
It’s as sobering as it gets.
It makes me thankful. It makes me so grateful for everything around me. I get to reaffirm my mantra, to live every day.
I’m going to be running the London Marathon in April
It’s time for me to help this amazing hospital in a small way.
My last marathon was in 2007. I’m now 13 years older (and you’d think wiser) and I’m going to run another.
I’m doing it as a personal challenge as well as to raise a ton of cash to help those in need … to help find cures … and to generate hope for those who need it most. I’m one of a team of about 35 and I’m slightly terrified.
How can you help?
CLICK TO SPONSOR MARK HERE
If I’ve ever helped you, worked with you, got drunk with you, paid you, laughed with you, delivered something for you, filmed you, interviewed you, measured your customer satisfaction, delivered a speech to you or referred you, I would be SO grateful if you’d consider sponsoring my endeavours with a few pounds / dollars / zen / euros / zloty.
With the lousy GBP exchange rate, your euros / dollars and zen will go a VERY long way to help those, who’ve helped me. If you’re here in the UK, your pounds still work very well.
Spare a thought too for everyone running, walking or crawling the 26.2 miles around London on 26th April 2020 and raising billions for the causes which mean so much to them.
This one means so much to me.
Thank you.
CLICK TO SPONSOR MARK HERE
*and now amazingly my wife of 20 years, despite everything I’ve put her through ❤
4 half marathons in a month:
in Inspiring storiesThe story of “giving back”.
A plan was hatched
And so it all began on the morning of 18th September 2011, when my wife and I sat and watched the Bupa Great North Run in our dressing gowns whilst having a relaxed Sunday morning.
Before the race started, as ever in true BBC style, wonderful tales of heroism, courage and support were told by everyday people, all running for their cause – all running for something they believed in passionately and all doing something positive to help that cause.
Listening to their stories and watching them run put me to shame that morning.
We’d just come back from a pretty special summer holiday. We live incredibly privileged lives and it hit me squarely between the eyes that it was time to take some action, raise some money and generally give something back to the charity that in an indirect way had saved my life 15 years’ ago.
That morning we hatched a plan for me to run four half marathons in a month. Not ground breaking by any stretch of the imagination – but challenging enough for me. What would make it even more special however would be to run it with a group of friends and persuade them to do the challenge too.
On 17th November 2011, after much research, thinking and fine tuning of my pitch, I assembled 10 “dad’s” in our local pub and waited till pint #3 before pitching the challenge.
So, how did we get on?
16th Sept – Great North Run
Red Arrows, 50,000 people, rain, Tony with the Fridge,Denise Lewis, My story featured on BBC1… 10 hour journey home.
We then had a week off
30th Sept Bristol
10,000 people, went off way to fast, horrible small hills, great city atmosphere,
7th Oct Windsor
The hardest – closest to us and arrived late, the hills hurt a lot, the children running the home straight with Paul was a real highlight
14th Oct – Henley
I was somewhat surprised by us being joined by 7 of my school mates, stunning weather, gorgeous scenery, the hardest mile of the 52 in Henley Hill, a great celebration afterwards.
Wind forward to Friday 19th October 2012
We celebrated the end of our challenge by gathering runner and supporters at the Thames Riviera Hotel in Maidenhead. It was a great night to reflect on the last few months of training and the pain of racing 52 miles across that month. Everyone had their own stories to tell and everyone had a lot of special memories. Some of us were even sad it was over!
I did stand on a chair and make a speech I’d spent most of the day writing – it was predominately to say thank you to everyone, and to award some certificates – I’d even laminated myself…
I also wanted to announce a total (which is still going up)… across 242 individual donations, including gift aid, we had exceeded our target of raising £10,783.20. However, in addition, I was delighted to announce a matched donation from BP (thanks to Simon Hodgkinson – one of their employees was part of the team )of £2,783.
There were gasps from the audience…
Donations on the night took the total to £23,758– which we were all thrilled with.
And so what a journey it’s been. What a lot of fond memories and most importantly, what a lot of money raised.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Let the next adventure be as fun…
Mark.
Examples of simplicity in business
in Get noticed - marketing tips, Inspiring storiesSimplicity is so hard.
I spend hours convincing clients that less is more.
Videos need to be shorter not longer.
Corporate messages need to be one sentence, not one paragraph.
It’s not about how much detail you can add, it’s about how much you can take away.
Thermomostats can be made simpler… who’d have thought it? Proves a point.
Blogs can be simple too – 37 Signals are the masters of clearing away clutter.
Even Sky, the giant corporate, have done a great job of keeping things simple on their ‘kit’ page.
We’ve worked hard at it too – our customer satisfaction survey web application, Customer Thermometer asks just one question.
As opposed to 20.
We’re constantly told, do one thing and do it well … keep things simple … walk before you can run
We so often ignore this advice, because it’s the easy way out to make things more complex.
Life has become very complicated. Too many choices and too much clutter.
How refreshing it is when a business does make things simple, removes that clutter.
As a result, you get drawn in, you become engaged. You’ve less to process.
It takes huge amount of effort to get good at it.
Some businesses manage it. Do you?
Why I say “It’s not a rehearsal”
in Inspiring storiesI was invited to a conference in New York this coming weekend, which is a lovely thing – however just not practical for me at this moment…
The conference is the first of its kind dedicated to patients and doctors dealing with a disease I’m rather close to – something called Hairy Cell Leukaemia.
Because I was unable to attend, I offered to put together a video of my story – after all, it is what we do most days of the week, except for me, I’m normally the one asking the questions. Last week, I swapped roles and gave some answers.
A big public thank you to my colleague Richard Spindler for putting this together for me.
I thought it might be interesting to share:
How to set up a toll free number for your website
in Get noticed - marketing tips, Get tech savvyWhen it comes to technology – the answer to “Can you do this…?” is always yes – it’s simply a case of how long or how much.
It’s only Tuesday and I’ve had an amazing week when it comes to technology research. I will save some of my research for another day – but today I’ve cracked something I’m extremely proud of – and I appear to have come full circle.
Back in 1996, I worked for the UK’s largest telco – BT. It’s even possible some of you reading this will have worked with me back then! One of my roles was as an International voice networking specialist – working with our global division to provide sales support to the likes of Hertz (memories of Oklahoma City) and advising on the latest and greatest call centre technology to distribute calls around the world to different call centres.
100’s if not 1000’s of engineers were involved in running our global network and switching voice calls around the world back then, according to time of day or menu options was hard and complicated and BT charged a lot of money for it.
I have two businesses and until recently, our web application, Customer Thermometer has email support only. We’ve had a number of ‘complaints’ we aren’t easy to get hold of – many of our US customers like to pick up the phone and talk to a real person (even if they’re British!) and one of our US colleagues decided it was time to implement a toll free ‘1800’ type number.
It’s not something I’d ever researched – yet I knew what I wanted – a number in the UK and a number in the US which would arrive at the same place – press ‘1’ for sales and ‘2’ for tech support… depending on which of the team were awake and on duty – the system should then route the call seamlessly… if no one was able to take a call – voicemail kicks in. I of course wanted to control all of that from some kind of web control panel and have complete flexibility.
Too much to ask?
What I wanted is wanted by hundreds of businesses around the world every day I would imagine – and I guess it sounds simple on paper – however when you stop to think about it – have you any idea how complicated that set up is!
It was time to Google: how to set up a toll free number.
Approximately an hour of research later, I hit the jackpot and want to recommend this company to you.
www.Tollfreeforwarding.com provide an online virtual control panel for setting up your toll free numbers.
You select a US toll free number and start your 1 month free trial. Inbound calls are then routed to your cell/mobile or chosen landline depending on how you set them up. You can then add in a UK toll free (or any other number for that matter).
Once set up, there are then multiple options available:
You can switch in a voice menu (which I recorded in my best voiceover voice – available on request) to distribute those calls, depending on the expertise around and available:
Voicemail is amazing – if someone leaves a message – you can hit play in your control panel to hear it … PLUS it emails you the voicemail as a wav file.
Calls are fully itemised:
Calls can be routed, depending on time of day / day of week:
Pricing
You pay a line rental every month for the service and each toll free number of $20 (starter) and then pay for routed calls separately. To route a call from a US toll free to a UK mobile is just 10c/minute… very reasonable. All features etc are fully inclusive.
You should know – I’m not on commission – this isn’t an affiliate sale – I just like to promote what works, is great value and could well answer many consultant’s questions…
Main image credit.
17 things I’ve learnt between Christmas and Easter 2013
in Inspiring storiesSince 7th January 2013 when I started back at work after Christmas, a LOT has happened. Not all of it good, but mostly. I’ve learnt, rediscovered and been reminded of a lot of things. 79 days is a very long time in business these days – at a guess I’d reckon it’s the equivalent of about 300 days in 1995. The pace of life and business is relentless and it’s not slowing any time soon.
I run two businesses – a video production business and a customer satisfaction application as well as blogging for fun here. The old adage of focusing on one thing has passed me by. Instead, I’ve actively chosen ‘variation’, which means I jump out of bed in the morning – for me the ultimate test of happiness. One day I’m driving clients around Milan, coming face to face with trams. Other days I’m working with programmers to add new functionality to Customer Thermometer. Other days I’m actively managing the cashflow.
I have two children, a house which needs constant attention and an amazing group of friends with an active social life. Life is not dull. I rarely spend time collapsed in a heap watching TV in the evening – there’s always something to do.
As a result of this madness, I’m exposed to a lot of situations and I find myself constantly learning, which I love. This post is pure self-indulgence. It’s a reminder to me of what’s happened in this last quarter and I’m going to tweak what I’m doing based on what I now know.
I hope you pick out a couple of things from it and I hope you disagree with some too.
1) People buy from people, not ‘salespeople’.
2) Having read WOMBAT selling (free download here), it was great to able to ratify that people cannot be sold to, nor ‘closed’. Prospects will move at their pace. All you can do is to help them to buy.
3) One bad day or week doesn’t mean you don’t have a business and you should be throwing in the towel.
4) I am constantly reminded of the effects of implementing Newton’s 3rd Law. If you take action, stuff happens. The great thing about life in business is that you don’t always know what the ‘stuff’ will turn out to be. If you sit around waiting for ‘stuff’ to happen, it won’t.
5) It’s amazing to hear someone telling you how your web application has changed their business. Makes the late nights all worthwhile.
6) Victory boards are cool… write down a list of week’s achievements at the end of the week, and consider what you’re going to be adding to it during the week. They give you focus.
7) If you don’t have a plan, you’ve no idea where you are heading.
8) Plans can be changed.
9) If you’re in a services business, go beyond the call of duty for your clients. It pays off. ‘Over deliver and under promise’ is a cliché, but it’s one of the best ones out there.
10) Writing a book is hard and I’m currently failing at it, because it’s not a priority. I’ll be back though.
11) Patience can be a virtue, but know when to give up and know when someone is wasting your time, or is never going to deliver – stop kidding yourself.
12) Celebrate success. Curry and Champagne on a Wednesday night is totally acceptable.
13) ‘Networking’ isn’t something you do once a month with a warm glass of white wine in a room full of strangers. The ability to connect, communicate and introduce people I’m starting to think is a naturally occurring phenomenon. I’m not convinced it can be taught, but I’m sure some would disagree. Whatever your take, it’s an essential part of business and I strive to get better at it, daily.
14) Never, ever, ever, ever, ever ignore a gut feeling. Act on it, or you’ll regret it.
15) Trust your instincts.
16) Always be testing.
17) Be honest and say ‘no’ when the deal isn’t right. You’ll be thanked for your honesty and you’ll be remembered when the time is right.
It’s OK to stay small
in Inspiring storiesLast week, I arranged a few drinks with some friends. In a brewery. Yes, we went to the absolute source of the beer and tasted it, whilst new batches were being fermented all around us. Of course, it was a great night – we learnt a huge amount about how to make beer, agreed and disagreed on the various tastes and all in all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, as you might expect.
What I hadn’t banked on however, was a lesson in business alongside the fun and frolics.
The Windsor and Eton brewery was set up 3 years ago. It’s one of over 1,000 microbreweries here in the UK now – and so it’s a competitive business. It was set up by 4 partners, and interestingly, one of them, Bob Morrison, is a marketing expert. It’s interesting – because, whilst of course you need to be able to brew great tasting beer, with competition all around, it’s how you differentiate, which gets you noticed and is one of the reasons they chose Windsor as its base – and leveraged its already amazing brand.
Note they use the word ‘ambition’ and there is no mention of growth by 10% year on year within that phrase.
I spent a while talking with Bob and became fascinated.
They’ve grown tremendously in the last 3 years – have doubled their brewing capacity and are bursting the seams of their backstreet warehouse, nestled amongst the terraced houses of Windsor. When we talked about their plans for the coming years, it was simple –
How refreshing.
How great to hear that a thriving business has an ambition to stay small, to keep niche, to retain quality, to excel at customer service, to not borrow and to stay true to their core values.
The conversation continued.
Staying small doesn’t mean you can’t grow of course. You can still grow (because, if you don’t grow, you die) – but in different ways, to keep their own personal interests high and to challenge them individually. In my world – it’s adding new features. In their world, they’d like to bottle their own beer and they’d like to move to kegs as well as barrels (oh yes – I know all the lingo now).
I related to this concept and it gave me great confidence. My video production business is going really well. I have a great team of people around me – but I made a conscious decision last year that I don’t want to walk into an office full of people (again) and feel the pressure of paying multiple salaries and mortgages. I want to stay small, but develop an amazing trusted virtual team who experience other projects, outside of my business, to keep them fully rounded and the pressure off all of us.
I want to say thanks to The Windsor and Eton brewery guys who have helped me to ratify my vision.
It really is OK to stay small, but please, be perfectly formed.
If you’re in the area – book on a tour will you?!
How I earned £300 cashback in 6 months (without trying)
in Get organised, Get tech savvy[For UK readers only.]
I buy a lot of ‘stuff’ online, mainly because it’s a) cheaper and b) saves me time and c) why leave the house when I don’t have to?! I have huge sympathy for the UK High St, however, as I’m often told, business is business.
About a year ago I was told about the TopCashback site by a friend of mine. He runs his own IT business, buys IT equipment on behalf of his clients regularly, and had made thousands just by buying the ‘stuff’ via a cashback site.
Before you take a look – let me describe it.
1) You need to buy something online and either already know which website to buy from OR you’d like some help in finding somewhere.
2) You visit the TopCashback site.
3) Type in the name of the retailer or item you’re looking for. (Examples include Apple, Insurance, ISAs, Sky, Vodafone, Ebuyer, Dell, PC World…) It’s brilliant when you’re looking to change car / house insurance for example.
4) It’ll list the retailer (they have 100’s) and make some recommendations too.
5) Next to each one, they’ll then list the amount of cashback you’ll receive if you click their link. PC World is currently at 7%, Vodafone currently offering £151 cashback on a 12 month contract. Legal and General – £60 cashback on home insurance.
6) You’ll then be taken to that retailer to search and buy what you’re after
7) Days, weeks or sometimes months later – you will receive that %age back in cold, hard cash or topped up Amazon vouchers.
There are no catches, it truly is that simple and frankly, if you don’t use it when you buy online, you are losing money.
How does it work?
When things sound too good to be true, they often are – so let me explain their business model.
I’m sure you’re aware of the concept of affiliate marketing. If you click on a banner or link which eventually leads you to make a purchase from that advertiser, the person hosting that banner or link gets a %age payment. This cashback site is an affiliate and has affiliate relationships with 100’s of retailers. Here’s the clever bit. Rather than collecting the affiliate revenue themselves, they pass it back to the ‘clicker’ – ie you. They make their money through the advertising on their site. They are currently Alexa ranked 9,166 and so get thousands of visitors/day – making their business model viable.
So – it’s a no brainer isn’t it?
Go take a look. It has genuinely made me £300 in Amazon vouchers in the last few months – simply by remembering to click their bookmark first AND it’s also given me some great retailers I wouldn’t have visited without their help.
It’s good to be transparent – and so if you do visit the site, sign up and make your first purchase through them – I will be ‘thanked’ by them and £10 will be added to my account. It’s called viral marketing – and you could do the same with your friends.
Hopefully if you like what I’ve been up to on this site over the last few years – you’ll be happy to see me earning 3.21 tall,skinny, decaf mochaccinos.