“If you’re looking out the window enjoying the view, you’re doing something wrong”
In 1998, I was fortunate enough to earn my Private Pilots License whilst I was living in Australia. It was a life long dream and after a couple of months of having the license, we returned to the UK and I’ve never flown since!
A lot of people have said to me – what was the point of all of that expense and effort if you don’t fly now? My answer to that is simple – firstly, it was a dream, which I fulfilled and loved every second of the experience. Secondly – I truly believe the experience taught me so much more than just learning to fly a plane.
Flying is perhaps 80% “what if”. The majority of your training is to help you to react in an emergency and my instructor always said to me that if you’re looking out the window enjoying the view – you’re definitely doing something wrong. I’m thinking that’s a pretty good analogy for the small business. It’s far too easy to ride a wave when things are going well, however that’s the time you should be more worried about your pipeline than any other time.
You need to keep adapting and changing, because if you stand still, you won’t survive.
37 Signals never stand still. I found this timelapse video of how their website has changed over the years – and I think there’s a message in there for all of us. The thing I take out is that the changes you make don’t need to be big. Small and often is the way to go for best results.
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-10-25 08:46:232011-10-25 08:46:23If you stand still, your small business won’t survive
I’ve been publishing content online for 3 years now – regularly. This blog is starting to prove popular, but I guess a lot of my publishing has been through training video production for and on behalf of other clients. It’s more recently I’ve started to produce video for my own purposes, based on the knowledge I’ve picked up over this time.
Last Thursday (5 days ago) I spent 20 minutes putting a video together, shortly after I’d implemented a technique for myself and I couldn’t help but think, for the ‘man in the street’ who isn’t overly technically literate, this might be a confusing and tricky thing to do.
iCloud and iOS5 was released on Wednesday 12th October 2011. I produced the video the following day. If I’m honest with myself, it was a bit rushed, however I knew I had to ‘ship’ so out it went – it was a lot more than was out there at the time. I worked out a new technique for explaining a concept, to save me time (slides would have taken longer) and I wrote the post and published the video on YouTube.
Stats as of 10pm on 18th October
[UPDATE: 8 November 2012 – 100,000+ views now!]
Before I produced the video I did something I don’t always do – and will do from now on. I did a search for various phrases around the subject and found nothing. Hardly surprising – iCloud had been out for less than 24 hours. It suddenly occurred to me that being first at something might be a good idea – so it’ would be worth investing the time in producing this. As it turned out, 20 minutes wasn’t much of an investment! That said, when you produce videos as often as I do you’d expect to do them quickly.
Within a couple of hours – I was amazed. The searches hitting the site (as opposed to being from an email promotion for example, where you’d expect a barrage of traffic) were extraordinary… visitors to the site shot up and within 4 days – through search alone, the video stat looked like this:
A couple of other by products occurred – I was suddenly seen as the global expert in syncing Outlook with iCloud (despite the fact that I’m certainly not!) I’ve had emails from the far corner of the earth asking me questions… not perhaps what I wanted, but nice to be asked nonetheless. In addition, visitors to this site and as a result affiliate clicks and revenue have shot right up and show no signs of falling – the searches are consistent in both hitting this site and YouTubedirectly.
So – the moral of the story – if you want to get known in your niche, publish great content whilst reacting to real time events.
What you should you, the lone consultant be doing about this?
I’m not an IT consultant, however, if you are, you should be kicking yourself. IT consultants across the land should have been producing content on the day iCloud and iOS5 was released. Remember this, publish early. It’s called first mover’s advantage. Get known for being an expert.
If you’re a finance consultant or a small accounting firm – find out what new legislation and rules are coming online in your country / state and become expert. Publish your thoughts, show people what to do. Be seen as an expert and people will call you up and ask you to work with them. It’s just a fact of life.
If you’re an HR consultant, legislation changes seemingly hourly here in the UK. I suspect it does throughout the rest of the world. If there’s a big change coming, build up to it, write about it, explain what effect it will have on your potential customers. The press will pick up on you, interview and before you know it, your phone will ring.
[UPDATE: Thanks to @newyork0605 – legislation changes in the UK have standardised – 1 October and 1 April – so get planning for next year!]
I could go on, but I know you know what I’m saying. Are you doing it though?
Further reading
If you’d like further reading – one of my favourite authors, David Meerman Scott has devoted a whole book to real time marketing which is a great read. There’s a stack of examples inside of this technique working as well as a discussion on why it’s such an important concept.
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-10-19 08:08:072011-10-19 08:08:07What happens if you publish content and react in real time
So much about being a lone consultant is about having your life made easier by technology. More often than not, it transpires against you to make life harder.
With iOS5 launching yesterday, I’ve been keen to find out how iCloud is going to help sync our lives – how helpful would it be to have all contacts and appointments etc on all devices? In addition – I wanted to see how iCloud interact would with Outlook and PC users.
It turns out it’s pretty darn good… oh and it’s all completely free for the first 5GB anyway.
There’s a short demo below – what it actually is… how to set it up… and watch it in action.
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.png00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-10-13 15:03:572011-10-13 15:03:57How to sync Outlook with iCloud
I wrote about Newton’s 3rd Law a while back – and I still subscribe to it – pretty much every day. To paraphrase Isaac himself:
For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
A friend of mine taught me this a long time ago and I’ve never forgotten it. It’s the way things get done. It’s the way fortunes are made and it’s the way great things are created.
The inch thick business plan doesn’t have a place in 2011 or in fact in any year going forwards. Having a one page plan… a direction… a vision even, is a very good thing, but then, just start. Try something. Put your toe in the water. Make a noise. Go outside your comfort zone. Anything.
And see what happens.
And then, iterate.
Change something. Try something else. Do something different. Talk to customers. If you don’t have any, find out what your prospects might want. Tweak your offer. Produce something in red instead of blue.
And see what happens.
And then, iterate.
Want to see this process in action from a company that started with nothing and now has multiple websites in the Top 1,000 most viewed? Here’s Collis Ta-eed, founder of Envato speaking more sense in 5 minutes than most of us do in an hour.
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.png00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-10-11 08:02:102011-10-11 08:02:10Just start. And then iterate.
Clients don’t buy ‘companies’, they buy people and as a rule, clients don’t buy dull, boring people.
In the first instance, a new client will always buy into a company website first – who doesn’t check someone out first before interacting with them? So, why is it that companies big and small insist on being dull, corporate, out of date, uninspiring and in the case of the lone consultant often don’t do their own personality justice.
Have you ever considered how many people have visited your website to check out what you do and have disappeared into the ether straight away, as they’re put off by your company personality? It’s the equivalent of the “I really must go and get myself a drink” moment at a party, when you’re talking to someone… except online, you have no idea who’s walking away.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot of late and come up with some screenshots I hope will inspire you – in both a good way.
So – here we go – 10 screenshots from websites that I hope will make you go and check out your site to see whether it has the personality you know it deserves.
1) Useful
If you need a company logo, what do you do? Go to their site and right click to download. Akismet has pre-empted that very nicely – look what pops up when you right click their logo… How useful is that?
I’ve admired these guys from afar for a couple of years. They make the awesome Market Samurai software. Have you ever seen such an honest about us page? Sometimes it’s just as important to say what you don’t do.
I left the Dilbert email list the other day… and you know what, they almost won me back – because they had a personality. How many unsubscribe pages say “UNSUBSCRIBE REQUEST COMPLETE. – CODE as8987e02” or something similar. What does yours say?
5) Uncorporate
I will take the First Direct bank with me to my grave. Why? Because they know how to relate to humans. Even their FOOTER conveys their personality. That’s pretty special.
Did you know if it’s your birthday according to your Google Profile, they’ll display you a Happy Birthday graphic. Google has oodles of personality. That’s one of the reasons they are where they are.
7) Playful
The Digital Telepathy team are superb designers. You’d expect them to have personality – and they do. It runs through their products too.
I’d be surprised if you don’t know the Innocent Smoothie brand. Their navigation header wobbles. I’ve never seen that before. It just works – because it once again conveys their personality. Am I getting through here?
Another geeky 404 page not found page with real thought. Remember those dark, distant Internet Explorer days? Here, they reminisce.
10) Helping you to buy
I’m reliably imformed that wherever you are in the world, the header changes to reveal whether the Threadless folks ship to your country. It really doesn’t get more helpful than that… immediately, they put you in the buying frame of mind.
Go on then – what are you waiting for…. go and get your website a personality!
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.png00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-10-10 07:37:202011-10-10 07:37:20Does your website have a personality, like these ones?
Having time off to think over the summer meant I came back to my desk on 6th September with more ideas than I could possible handle in two years and the Mark of old would have attempted to tackle them all at the same time. It is a terrible trait of mine – have idea, abandon everything else and just do it.
Well I’m better than that now – I’ve been around too long to know that’s a bad thing to do. There’s a lot of people who’ve been saying the same thing to me recently. Ed Dale brought it to my attention at the beginning of the year at the Going Pro conference (you can watch his speech here for free) If you want to change, move, grow, whatever… then you have to take small steps.
Small steps can lead to big change.
Step change without these small steps, rarely works.
You only have to look at the diet industry to know how true that is. But the same applies in the small business world too.
So having had all this time to think, I filed the big ideas, broke them up into small chunks and then started to tweak how I work. There’s a summary below.
I’ve been using Evernote for 3 years, but haven’t been using it well. It’s now on every PC. I’ve changed the folder structure to fit with where I am now (not 3 years ago) and I now use it everyday to file away ideas when I’m ready for them.
I had heard about a great way to manage multiple websites about 9 months ago and Tweeted it in fact, however had never tried it out. I’ve now got ManageWP up and running and am writing this post through it now. It’s a massive timesaver. I can now update plugins, WordPress core and deal with comments on 20 websites in single clicks. Nice.
I bought another whiteboard – one that I could wipe clean and is reserved for ideas – I’ve a separate one for targets and goals. I used it 3 times alone yesterday to mindmap scripts. It means you have to get up from your chair, and it gets you being creative. Great advice from James Schramko in this podcast.
I bought a mic boom for my voiceover work. It now takes me back to my radio days – I feel more professional (and I’ve been told I sound it too).
I now review Targets and Objectives monthly – it used to be quarterly – but things can drift. They’re written clearly on the (other) white board and there’s a countdown of the number of days left before the end of the month too.
Sales targets are updated weekly. I track progress and print it and stick it next to me so it’s in my line of vision all week. That’s a much more effective eyeline than Tweetdeck (which it used to be).
I’ve a blog post calendar. I know what I’m going to write and when over the next few weeks. As new ideas come in, I file them away ready for writing.
I’m saying ‘no’ more regularly, which actually isn’t a small thing. But it is really.
I’m pausing more. Rather than rushing in.
What are you doing small?
To sum things up, one of the most successful online companies on the planet does things in small steps too – so I thought this backs up today’s post rather nicely…
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-10-04 08:23:322011-10-04 08:23:32Think small if you want big results
I’ve been wanting to write this story for a long time. I turned 40 2 days’ ago and it seemed like the right time to do it. If you’re having a bad day, I hope it raises your spirits. If you’re having a bad time generally, I hope it helps you to put things into perspective. If you’re having a good time, I hope it helps you be thankful for what you have.
This is the last part of the story. There has been a lot to say. Part 1 was here and part 2 here.
It’s not a rehearsal
I go back every six months currently – to the Royal Marsden hospital for a blood test. I get nervous before, but have been skipping out of the hospital for 8 years. It’s the most sobering experience sitting in the waiting room and explains why I get so cross when I see the ‘yoof of today’ smashing the place up on the news with no regards for themselves or society.
It’s not a rehearsal I say.
And I like to think most days that I live that ethos. When I remember back to these times, when I see sad stories on the news, when I watch the Great North Run and hear the stories behind the runners, when I see a Leukaemia Research collection box, it hurts me more than most – however it’s one of the few scars I have from the experiences.
Has the experience changed me?
Ask those around me. Especially Suzanne.
Not really I don’t think. I’ve always tried to live a very full life and took great solace from that fact. I’m incredibly driven, I take on too much, I get frustrated when those around me don’t move as fast, I rarely sit and relax, I run with the ball too much, when I should pass (metaphorically speaking) and I can’t watch the sad films on Comic Relief or Children in Need. All said and done, I don’t think that’s so bad, considering.
So what to the future? I was 40 two days ago. What will I take forward with me for the next few years, 13 years after the spectre of Leukaemia reared its very ugly head? In no particular order – I will use these statements as a guide… I’d love to know whether you agree.
Change is inevitable – go with it, embrace it or fall behind the pack.
Having children changes you. For the better. Enjoy them while they’re young – and don’t pay lipservice to that statement, or you’ll regret it.
The pause button once in a while isn’t such a bad thing.
Running your own business is a privelige. It’s tough out there, but having a process and following your vision is key to success.
It is OK to say no once in a while. In fact, it’s quite good.
If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
You are the luckiest person alive if work is a hobby.
Don’t be afraid to tell people the truth, even if it hurts.
Time is the most previous thing we have – use it wisely.
Life is all about choices – you can actively choose how to live every day. Every decision, every reaction is down to you. Don’t blame others for your choices – just make better ones.
And the biggest learning point of all from this whole experience – which will be enscribed on my tombstone – “It’s not a rehearsal”. I genuinely subscribe to this. Grab chances while you can. It maybe too late tomorrow.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series – it’s been therapeutic writing it. Thanks to everyone for their emails and comments etc – the private response has been overwhelming. I hope you take whatever you can from it and use it.
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Have you seen what I’m doing for our charity challenge later in 2012?
CLICK HERE to find out and please DONATE something small if you can. [/box]
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.png00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-09-28 13:01:402011-09-28 13:01:40Approaching 40 part 3: The day I turned 40
I’ve been wanting to write this story for a long time. I turn 40 in 3 days’ time and it seemed like the right time to do it. If you’re having a bad day, I hope it raises your spirits. If you’re having a bad time generally, I hope it helps you to put things into perspective. If you’re having a good time, I hope it helps you be thankful for what you have.
The story is a three parter. There’s a lot to say. Part 1 was here.
It was the not too bad one.
I had Hairycell Leukaemia. And yes, that was the not too bad one. It affects mainly men over 60 and is one of the rarest Leukaemias. Leukaemia is also pretty rare in itself. I was pronounced a freak of nature right there and then.
I still remember how happy the nurses were – there was palpable relief from all the medical staff. Everyone was over the moon that I had Hairycell Leukaemia.
No, really they were.
So we were, because they knew how to deal with it and the prognosis was good.
Later in the day (bearing in mind the time difference in Australia) the nurses came to tell us that Princess Diana had broken her arm in a car crash and we then heard the whole event unfold – something most people in the UK weren’t awake to hear.
So, on 31st August 1997, I learnt I had a relatively treatable Leukaemia and the world lost Princess Diana. It was a day I’ve not forgotten.
The next few months I went back to work, apart from on Monday mornings where I put my feet up, had the most wonderful view and sat with a drip in my arm for my weekly dose of chemotherapy. Cladribine was a drug I came to know a lot about. I got a bit tired but other than that, there were no side effects – not what you come to expect when you hear about chemotherapy.
My blood counts hit rock bottom as the not so smart chemicals attacked the bad guys as well as the good guys in my blood. I then had the delight of injecting myself on a fairly frequent basis to keep those white blood counts up, to prevent infection. Suzanne and I tried to keep doing the things we wanted to do. I’ll never forget driving to Broken Hill and back over a long weekend (Australians will know that’s an utterly ridiculous thing to do) and keeping the injection pack in bar fridges around the outback.
As December approached, my blood counts had returned to something resembling normal again – it really was a minor miracle. By all accounts I shouldn’t still have been standing up in July – I should have caught an infection and been wiped out, as I had nothing to fight it. Yet here I was, fighting fit again and carrying on with my Pilots License and working around Asia-Pacific. I was a seriously lucky boy.
After a load more tests towards the end of my treatment, I was told that they hadn’t managed to eliminate all the Hairycells (technical term for bad guys). There were still a tiny proportion in my bone marrow and it was possible the disease would return.
It did in fact. Around a year after we returned home.
October 1999
I was treated again – this time in the UK at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, where I was now under the care of a wonderful consultant, Dr Claire Dearden who to this day ranks in one of my top ten favourite people of all time. She’s an academic consultant who when I met her for the first time told me I have “her favourite disease.” Phrases like that you never forget.
I had the same treatment, but this time over a week instead of over months. It was an enforced holiday in an isolation ward with just me and some computer games and the beginnings of the Internet via a 56k modem. Apologies to the NHS if I ran up a phone bill.
More bone marrow tests were requested. I requested to be knocked out for these from now on – there’s only so much a bloke can take.
Once again, I went into remission, but there was doubt about the long term chances of the disease staying away.
My son Matthew was born in November 2003. A month before he was born, the letter I was dreading after a routine test came through the door. We had moved by then to Windsor, UK. Good enough for the Queen, good enough for us. I say this for a reason – the UK’s health postcode lottery.
Dr Dearden had tried and failed to get me on a medical trial of a drug she knew was going to help me long term when I lived in Oxford. She tried again and this time our new local authority said yes – they had the budget. Shocking, butI wasn’t complaining
And so I was one of the first couple of people in the world to have a combination of Monoclonal Antibodies and Pentostatin chemotherapy to treat Hairycell Leukaemia. There was a hope that 1+1=3 with this combination. If it worked, I’d be written up in medical journals and everything.
I had to go to the Royal Marsden hospital overnight for my first treatment, “just in case it didn’t agree with me” … great… As I sat on my bed and the drip went in I couldn’t help noticing the 10 doctors with clipboards and a tray of needles – “just in case”.
One by one they went away and after a few more weeks of treatment and tests, I went back to see some very happy faces shortly after Matthew was born.
I went into complete remission in January 2004 and have been totally clear to this day. As Matthew turns 8 soon – so will my period of complete health.
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Have you seen what I’m doing for our charity challenge later in 2012?
CLICK HERE to find out and please DONATE something small if you can. [/box]
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.png00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-09-22 22:30:072011-09-22 22:30:07Approaching 40 part 2: The day I found out I had Leukaemia
I’ve been wanting to write this story for a long time. I turn 40 in 6 days’ time and it seemed like the right time to do it. If you’re having a bad day, I hope it raises your spirits. If you’re having a bad time generally, I hope it helps you to put things into perspective. If you’re having a good time, I hope it helps you be thankful for what you have.
The story is a three parter. There’s a lot to say.
13th February 1997
My girlfriend (now wife) and I packed our bags, left our jobs, jumped on a plane and moved in together, 11,500 miles away from everything we owned and knew. Living in Sydney, Australia had been a dream for ages and we’d spent over a year making the dream come alive. I’d even flown out there the year before, looking for a job. The plan had worked. We were over the moon.
I had a medical through my sponsoring company – BT (British Telecom) a couple of days before we left the country. The HR dept weren’t overly organised, which in a funny way worked to my advantage. If they had have been, we would never have even left the country.
We landed and set up base in a hotel until we found our feet. A couple of days into the trip I received a fax (remember them?) asking me to call the doctor who’d carried out my medical. I called and he told me, “it’s probably a mistake, but your blood counts are a bit low, you should probably get them checked out…”
I put the phone down and did exactly what any perfectly healthy 27 year old who’d just landed in Sydney would do.
Ignore him completely.
There was no urgency attached to the conversation and I felt I had more important things to worry about at the time.
Fast forward to July 1997
I woke up one morning with a pain in my buttock. No sniggering… I was struggling to walk which was pretty odd, not to mention uncomfortable. This then forced me to register with a local doctor (I had to remind myself what the inside of a surgery looked like) and asked her to take a look. After much prodding from not one, but two doctors, I was about to be sent away with some anti-inflammatory pills. Before I left though, the wise doctor suggested she took some blood from me, just to be on the safe side. I then remembered the BT doctor’s phone call.
A couple of days later the pain had gone, but I went back to the surgery anyway as she’d asked me to report back that all was well.
I walked in smiling and she told me to sit down.
It turns out all wasn’t well.
It was around midday and anyone who had an appointment after me was going to be kept waiting for a while.
In the space of 30 seconds, my life turned on a sixpence.
It turns out the pain in the buttock was an infection. The reason it was unusual was because my blood should have been capable of fighting such things with ease. It seems my BT doctor should have made a little more of a fuss about the blood test I had back in February.
She proceeded to say sentences with words in that no one wants to hear in a doctor’s surgery which involved “10% of normal levels”…. “blood transfusion”… “haematologist and “leukaemia”….
My girlfriend was called from work.
I had tunnel vision and my life flashed before me. The invincible, 27 year old, healthy, fit, Asia-Pac travelling, young man, was no longer invincible.
Considering it was 13 years ago, I remember the next few weeks vividly.
I was with a specialist haematologist within about 2 hours.
He and I sat stony faced across his desk and after some initial introductions, I asked the very simple question anyone reading this would have asked, because it’s the only thing that matters at that time.
“Am I going to die?”
“I don’t know”, was the reply. “We need to do some tests to find out what’s wrong.”
Later that afternoon, I had dozens of viles of blood taken, a bone marrow scrape (which is the most unpleasant thing I’ve ever had happen to me) and various other scans over the space of 2 hours.
Our walk back through the station at Town Hall in Sydney I remember so clearly – it was like one of those sequences in the movies – where they put a mist round you and everyone else is slightly blurred out… “Why me?” is all I remember asking time and time again.
We then went home to call our respective mum and dads. Not the call they were expecting. Not easy calls to make.
For the next two weeks I had lots more tests scheduled in. The doctors and nurses were incredible and the private health insurance I was given 24 hours before I left the country was a godsend. For those two weeks I had no idea if I was going to have my life shortened to just 27 years or whether I would be OK, or something in between.
I drove a lot, for some reason. I remember heading out into the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney and sitting and looking at the view. I also remember taking great comfort from knowing that I had lived my life to the max. I wouldn’t have changed anything. I have to say that was very comforting. The biggest battle in my head was coming to terms with not being with Suzanne any more – that was hurting me in a big way and there was nothing I could do about it.
I went back to the consultant for the diagnosis a couple of weeks later. By now it was the middle of August and a beautiful Sydney winter. The sky was so blue as we went in to the consulting rooms – I remember looking up at it before I went in, unsure of how I would be feeling like when I came out. As moments go in life – this was a moment.
Narrowing it down
They’d narrowed it down to three possible causes – one very bad, one bad and one not too bad. In order to complete the diagnosis, I had to have my spleen removed. It was three times the size it should have been, as it had been filtering pretty rubbish blood for who knows how many months or years. Removing it would help with treating me, as well as helping to absolutely diagnose the problem.
We left and called my parents. It was news… it wasn’t great news, but it could have been worse. There was hope and things were starting to happen. Everything is so much easier when things start to happen. It’s probably one of the reasons for me being obsessed with taking action today. Sometimes pausing is a better solution.
A week or so later I went into hospital to say goodbye to my spleen. My days as a sixpack model were numbered, and trips to Malarial countries were now out the window, however it was a small price to pay.
The operation was on 28th August 1997.
Three days later on 31st August 1997, as I was recovering from the operation and the morphine had been taken away 🙁 the doctor came to see me. My spleen had been whisked off to the lab and chopped into tiny pieces and put under a microscope. They could finally see what had been going on over the last few months and probably years.
They had narrowed it down to one of the three possibilities on a day where history was being made for all the wrong reasons back in the UK.
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Have you seen what I’m doing for our charity challenge later in 2012?
CLICK HERE to find out and please DONATE something small if you can. [/box]
https://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.png00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-09-20 21:41:392011-09-20 21:41:39Approaching 40 part 1: The day my life changed forever
If you use Paypal for your online transactions, and chances are you do, then you’re going to thank yourself for reading this review.
For years people selling services online have used Paypal, but have struggled with their website. It’s slow, it’s clunky and it’s NOT intuitive at all. Processing refunds and analysing data are a nightmare and it should be a dream.
It now is.
With this revolutionary new Adobe Air desktop app for Mac or PC, the Putler team have created an interface into your Paypal account. It has dashboards, it is fast, it provides automatic analysis on how your business is doing.
In short, it is totally awesome and life changing if you deal with Paypal every day.
00Mark Copemanhttps://markcopeman.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-site-logo.pngMark Copeman2011-09-19 09:15:412011-09-19 09:15:41A review of Putler – the best Paypal app ever
If you stand still, your small business won’t survive
in Get organised“If you’re looking out the window enjoying the view, you’re doing something wrong”
In 1998, I was fortunate enough to earn my Private Pilots License whilst I was living in Australia. It was a life long dream and after a couple of months of having the license, we returned to the UK and I’ve never flown since!
A lot of people have said to me – what was the point of all of that expense and effort if you don’t fly now? My answer to that is simple – firstly, it was a dream, which I fulfilled and loved every second of the experience. Secondly – I truly believe the experience taught me so much more than just learning to fly a plane.
Flying is perhaps 80% “what if”. The majority of your training is to help you to react in an emergency and my instructor always said to me that if you’re looking out the window enjoying the view – you’re definitely doing something wrong. I’m thinking that’s a pretty good analogy for the small business. It’s far too easy to ride a wave when things are going well, however that’s the time you should be more worried about your pipeline than any other time.
Are you listening to trends in the marketplace? Are you getting first mover advantage? Are you listening to your customers?
You need to keep adapting and changing, because if you stand still, you won’t survive.
37 Signals never stand still. I found this timelapse video of how their website has changed over the years – and I think there’s a message in there for all of us. The thing I take out is that the changes you make don’t need to be big. Small and often is the way to go for best results.
Evolution of a homepage from 37signals on Vimeo.
What happens if you publish content and react in real time
in Get noticed - marketing tipsThe results of a fascinating experiment
I’ve been publishing content online for 3 years now – regularly. This blog is starting to prove popular, but I guess a lot of my publishing has been through training video production for and on behalf of other clients. It’s more recently I’ve started to produce video for my own purposes, based on the knowledge I’ve picked up over this time.
Last Thursday (5 days ago) I spent 20 minutes putting a video together, shortly after I’d implemented a technique for myself and I couldn’t help but think, for the ‘man in the street’ who isn’t overly technically literate, this might be a confusing and tricky thing to do.
iCloud and iOS5 was released on Wednesday 12th October 2011. I produced the video the following day. If I’m honest with myself, it was a bit rushed, however I knew I had to ‘ship’ so out it went – it was a lot more than was out there at the time. I worked out a new technique for explaining a concept, to save me time (slides would have taken longer) and I wrote the post and published the video on YouTube.
Stats as of 10pm on 18th October[UPDATE: 8 November 2012 – 100,000+ views now!]
Before I produced the video I did something I don’t always do – and will do from now on. I did a search for various phrases around the subject and found nothing. Hardly surprising – iCloud had been out for less than 24 hours. It suddenly occurred to me that being first at something might be a good idea – so it’ would be worth investing the time in producing this. As it turned out, 20 minutes wasn’t much of an investment! That said, when you produce videos as often as I do you’d expect to do them quickly.
Within a couple of hours – I was amazed. The searches hitting the site (as opposed to being from an email promotion for example, where you’d expect a barrage of traffic) were extraordinary… visitors to the site shot up and within 4 days – through search alone, the video stat looked like this:
A couple of other by products occurred – I was suddenly seen as the global expert in syncing Outlook with iCloud (despite the fact that I’m certainly not!) I’ve had emails from the far corner of the earth asking me questions… not perhaps what I wanted, but nice to be asked nonetheless. In addition, visitors to this site and as a result affiliate clicks and revenue have shot right up and show no signs of falling – the searches are consistent in both hitting this site and YouTubedirectly.
So – the moral of the story – if you want to get known in your niche, publish great content whilst reacting to real time events.
What you should you, the lone consultant be doing about this?
I’m not an IT consultant, however, if you are, you should be kicking yourself. IT consultants across the land should have been producing content on the day iCloud and iOS5 was released. Remember this, publish early. It’s called first mover’s advantage. Get known for being an expert.
If you’re a finance consultant or a small accounting firm – find out what new legislation and rules are coming online in your country / state and become expert. Publish your thoughts, show people what to do. Be seen as an expert and people will call you up and ask you to work with them. It’s just a fact of life.
If you’re an HR consultant, legislation changes seemingly hourly here in the UK. I suspect it does throughout the rest of the world. If there’s a big change coming, build up to it, write about it, explain what effect it will have on your potential customers. The press will pick up on you, interview and before you know it, your phone will ring.
[UPDATE: Thanks to @newyork0605 – legislation changes in the UK have standardised – 1 October and 1 April – so get planning for next year!]
I could go on, but I know you know what I’m saying. Are you doing it though?
Further reading
If you’d like further reading – one of my favourite authors, David Meerman Scott has devoted a whole book to real time marketing which is a great read. There’s a stack of examples inside of this technique working as well as a discussion on why it’s such an important concept.
How to sync Outlook with iCloud
in Get tech savvyMaking your life easier…
So much about being a lone consultant is about having your life made easier by technology. More often than not, it transpires against you to make life harder.
With iOS5 launching yesterday, I’ve been keen to find out how iCloud is going to help sync our lives – how helpful would it be to have all contacts and appointments etc on all devices? In addition – I wanted to see how iCloud interact would with Outlook and PC users.
It turns out it’s pretty darn good… oh and it’s all completely free for the first 5GB anyway.
There’s a short demo below – what it actually is… how to set it up… and watch it in action.
Just start. And then iterate.
in Get organised, Inspiring storiesKeep it simple…
I wrote about Newton’s 3rd Law a while back – and I still subscribe to it – pretty much every day. To paraphrase Isaac himself:
A friend of mine taught me this a long time ago and I’ve never forgotten it. It’s the way things get done. It’s the way fortunes are made and it’s the way great things are created.
The inch thick business plan doesn’t have a place in 2011 or in fact in any year going forwards. Having a one page plan… a direction… a vision even, is a very good thing, but then, just start. Try something. Put your toe in the water. Make a noise. Go outside your comfort zone. Anything.
And see what happens.
And then, iterate.
Change something. Try something else. Do something different. Talk to customers. If you don’t have any, find out what your prospects might want. Tweak your offer. Produce something in red instead of blue.
And see what happens.
And then, iterate.
Want to see this process in action from a company that started with nothing and now has multiple websites in the Top 1,000 most viewed? Here’s Collis Ta-eed, founder of Envato speaking more sense in 5 minutes than most of us do in an hour.
Does your website have a personality, like these ones?
in Get noticed - marketing tipsPeople buy from people
Clients don’t buy ‘companies’, they buy people and as a rule, clients don’t buy dull, boring people.
In the first instance, a new client will always buy into a company website first – who doesn’t check someone out first before interacting with them? So, why is it that companies big and small insist on being dull, corporate, out of date, uninspiring and in the case of the lone consultant often don’t do their own personality justice.
Have you ever considered how many people have visited your website to check out what you do and have disappeared into the ether straight away, as they’re put off by your company personality? It’s the equivalent of the “I really must go and get myself a drink” moment at a party, when you’re talking to someone… except online, you have no idea who’s walking away.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot of late and come up with some screenshots I hope will inspire you – in both a good way.
So – here we go – 10 screenshots from websites that I hope will make you go and check out your site to see whether it has the personality you know it deserves.
1) Useful
If you need a company logo, what do you do? Go to their site and right click to download. Akismet has pre-empted that very nicely – look what pops up when you right click their logo… How useful is that?
www.akismet.com
2) Honest
I’ve admired these guys from afar for a couple of years. They make the awesome Market Samurai software. Have you ever seen such an honest about us page? Sometimes it’s just as important to say what you don’t do.
See the full page here:
http://www.alliancesoftware.com.au/about/strengths-and-weaknesses
3) Geeky
A 404 page not found page… which normally says “Page not found” or something dull. These guys are geeks – but THEY HAVE A PERSONALITY!
www.css-tricks.com/qwerty
4) Cheeky
I left the Dilbert email list the other day… and you know what, they almost won me back – because they had a personality. How many unsubscribe pages say “UNSUBSCRIBE REQUEST COMPLETE. – CODE as8987e02” or something similar. What does yours say?
5) Uncorporate
I will take the First Direct bank with me to my grave. Why? Because they know how to relate to humans. Even their FOOTER conveys their personality. That’s pretty special.
www.firstdirect.com
6) Clever
Did you know if it’s your birthday according to your Google Profile, they’ll display you a Happy Birthday graphic. Google has oodles of personality. That’s one of the reasons they are where they are.
7) Playful
The Digital Telepathy team are superb designers. You’d expect them to have personality – and they do. It runs through their products too.
www.hellobar.com
8.) As you would expect
I’d be surprised if you don’t know the Innocent Smoothie brand. Their navigation header wobbles. I’ve never seen that before. It just works – because it once again conveys their personality. Am I getting through here?
www.innocentdrinks.co.uk
9) Makes you smile
Another geeky 404 page not found page with real thought. Remember those dark, distant Internet Explorer days? Here, they reminisce.
10) Helping you to buy
I’m reliably imformed that wherever you are in the world, the header changes to reveal whether the Threadless folks ship to your country. It really doesn’t get more helpful than that… immediately, they put you in the buying frame of mind.
www.threadless.com/
Go on then – what are you waiting for…. go and get your website a personality!
Think small if you want big results
in Get organisedHaving time off to think over the summer meant I came back to my desk on 6th September with more ideas than I could possible handle in two years and the Mark of old would have attempted to tackle them all at the same time. It is a terrible trait of mine – have idea, abandon everything else and just do it.
Well I’m better than that now – I’ve been around too long to know that’s a bad thing to do. There’s a lot of people who’ve been saying the same thing to me recently. Ed Dale brought it to my attention at the beginning of the year at the Going Pro conference (you can watch his speech here for free) If you want to change, move, grow, whatever… then you have to take small steps.
Small steps can lead to big change.
Step change without these small steps, rarely works.
You only have to look at the diet industry to know how true that is. But the same applies in the small business world too.
So having had all this time to think, I filed the big ideas, broke them up into small chunks and then started to tweak how I work. There’s a summary below.
What are you doing small?
To sum things up, one of the most successful online companies on the planet does things in small steps too – so I thought this backs up today’s post rather nicely…
Approaching 40 part 3: The day I turned 40
in Inspiring storiesI’ve been wanting to write this story for a long time. I turned 40 2 days’ ago and it seemed like the right time to do it. If you’re having a bad day, I hope it raises your spirits. If you’re having a bad time generally, I hope it helps you to put things into perspective. If you’re having a good time, I hope it helps you be thankful for what you have.
This is the last part of the story. There has been a lot to say. Part 1 was here and part 2 here.
I go back every six months currently – to the Royal Marsden hospital for a blood test. I get nervous before, but have been skipping out of the hospital for 8 years. It’s the most sobering experience sitting in the waiting room and explains why I get so cross when I see the ‘yoof of today’ smashing the place up on the news with no regards for themselves or society.
It’s not a rehearsal I say.
And I like to think most days that I live that ethos. When I remember back to these times, when I see sad stories on the news, when I watch the Great North Run and hear the stories behind the runners, when I see a Leukaemia Research collection box, it hurts me more than most – however it’s one of the few scars I have from the experiences.
Has the experience changed me?
Ask those around me. Especially Suzanne.
Not really I don’t think. I’ve always tried to live a very full life and took great solace from that fact. I’m incredibly driven, I take on too much, I get frustrated when those around me don’t move as fast, I rarely sit and relax, I run with the ball too much, when I should pass (metaphorically speaking) and I can’t watch the sad films on Comic Relief or Children in Need. All said and done, I don’t think that’s so bad, considering.
So what to the future? I was 40 two days ago. What will I take forward with me for the next few years, 13 years after the spectre of Leukaemia reared its very ugly head? In no particular order – I will use these statements as a guide… I’d love to know whether you agree.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series – it’s been therapeutic writing it. Thanks to everyone for their emails and comments etc – the private response has been overwhelming. I hope you take whatever you can from it and use it.
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Have you seen what I’m doing for our charity challenge later in 2012?
CLICK HERE to find out and please DONATE something small if you can.
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Approaching 40 part 2: The day I found out I had Leukaemia
in Inspiring storiesI’ve been wanting to write this story for a long time. I turn 40 in 3 days’ time and it seemed like the right time to do it. If you’re having a bad day, I hope it raises your spirits. If you’re having a bad time generally, I hope it helps you to put things into perspective. If you’re having a good time, I hope it helps you be thankful for what you have.
The story is a three parter. There’s a lot to say. Part 1 was here.
It was the not too bad one.
I had Hairycell Leukaemia. And yes, that was the not too bad one. It affects mainly men over 60 and is one of the rarest Leukaemias. Leukaemia is also pretty rare in itself. I was pronounced a freak of nature right there and then.
I still remember how happy the nurses were – there was palpable relief from all the medical staff. Everyone was over the moon that I had Hairycell Leukaemia.
No, really they were.
So we were, because they knew how to deal with it and the prognosis was good.
Later in the day (bearing in mind the time difference in Australia) the nurses came to tell us that Princess Diana had broken her arm in a car crash and we then heard the whole event unfold – something most people in the UK weren’t awake to hear.
So, on 31st August 1997, I learnt I had a relatively treatable Leukaemia and the world lost Princess Diana. It was a day I’ve not forgotten.
The next few months I went back to work, apart from on Monday mornings where I put my feet up, had the most wonderful view and sat with a drip in my arm for my weekly dose of chemotherapy. Cladribine was a drug I came to know a lot about. I got a bit tired but other than that, there were no side effects – not what you come to expect when you hear about chemotherapy.
My blood counts hit rock bottom as the not so smart chemicals attacked the bad guys as well as the good guys in my blood. I then had the delight of injecting myself on a fairly frequent basis to keep those white blood counts up, to prevent infection. Suzanne and I tried to keep doing the things we wanted to do. I’ll never forget driving to Broken Hill and back over a long weekend (Australians will know that’s an utterly ridiculous thing to do) and keeping the injection pack in bar fridges around the outback.
As December approached, my blood counts had returned to something resembling normal again – it really was a minor miracle. By all accounts I shouldn’t still have been standing up in July – I should have caught an infection and been wiped out, as I had nothing to fight it. Yet here I was, fighting fit again and carrying on with my Pilots License and working around Asia-Pacific. I was a seriously lucky boy.
After a load more tests towards the end of my treatment, I was told that they hadn’t managed to eliminate all the Hairycells (technical term for bad guys). There were still a tiny proportion in my bone marrow and it was possible the disease would return.
It did in fact. Around a year after we returned home.
October 1999
I was treated again – this time in the UK at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, where I was now under the care of a wonderful consultant, Dr Claire Dearden who to this day ranks in one of my top ten favourite people of all time. She’s an academic consultant who when I met her for the first time told me I have “her favourite disease.” Phrases like that you never forget.
I had the same treatment, but this time over a week instead of over months. It was an enforced holiday in an isolation ward with just me and some computer games and the beginnings of the Internet via a 56k modem. Apologies to the NHS if I ran up a phone bill.
More bone marrow tests were requested. I requested to be knocked out for these from now on – there’s only so much a bloke can take.
Once again, I went into remission, but there was doubt about the long term chances of the disease staying away.
Dr Dearden had tried and failed to get me on a medical trial of a drug she knew was going to help me long term when I lived in Oxford. She tried again and this time our new local authority said yes – they had the budget. Shocking, butI wasn’t complaining
And so I was one of the first couple of people in the world to have a combination of Monoclonal Antibodies and Pentostatin chemotherapy to treat Hairycell Leukaemia. There was a hope that 1+1=3 with this combination. If it worked, I’d be written up in medical journals and everything.
I had to go to the Royal Marsden hospital overnight for my first treatment, “just in case it didn’t agree with me” … great… As I sat on my bed and the drip went in I couldn’t help noticing the 10 doctors with clipboards and a tray of needles – “just in case”.
One by one they went away and after a few more weeks of treatment and tests, I went back to see some very happy faces shortly after Matthew was born.
I went into complete remission in January 2004 and have been totally clear to this day. As Matthew turns 8 soon – so will my period of complete health.
The final part of the story will appear on Wednesday next week. (Part 3 is now live – here!)
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Have you seen what I’m doing for our charity challenge later in 2012?
CLICK HERE to find out and please DONATE something small if you can.
[/box]
Approaching 40 part 1: The day my life changed forever
in Inspiring storiesI’ve been wanting to write this story for a long time. I turn 40 in 6 days’ time and it seemed like the right time to do it. If you’re having a bad day, I hope it raises your spirits. If you’re having a bad time generally, I hope it helps you to put things into perspective. If you’re having a good time, I hope it helps you be thankful for what you have.
The story is a three parter. There’s a lot to say.
My girlfriend (now wife) and I packed our bags, left our jobs, jumped on a plane and moved in together, 11,500 miles away from everything we owned and knew. Living in Sydney, Australia had been a dream for ages and we’d spent over a year making the dream come alive. I’d even flown out there the year before, looking for a job. The plan had worked. We were over the moon.
I had a medical through my sponsoring company – BT (British Telecom) a couple of days before we left the country. The HR dept weren’t overly organised, which in a funny way worked to my advantage. If they had have been, we would never have even left the country.
We landed and set up base in a hotel until we found our feet. A couple of days into the trip I received a fax (remember them?) asking me to call the doctor who’d carried out my medical. I called and he told me, “it’s probably a mistake, but your blood counts are a bit low, you should probably get them checked out…”
I put the phone down and did exactly what any perfectly healthy 27 year old who’d just landed in Sydney would do.
Ignore him completely.
There was no urgency attached to the conversation and I felt I had more important things to worry about at the time.
Fast forward to July 1997
I woke up one morning with a pain in my buttock. No sniggering… I was struggling to walk which was pretty odd, not to mention uncomfortable. This then forced me to register with a local doctor (I had to remind myself what the inside of a surgery looked like) and asked her to take a look. After much prodding from not one, but two doctors, I was about to be sent away with some anti-inflammatory pills. Before I left though, the wise doctor suggested she took some blood from me, just to be on the safe side. I then remembered the BT doctor’s phone call.
A couple of days later the pain had gone, but I went back to the surgery anyway as she’d asked me to report back that all was well.
I walked in smiling and she told me to sit down.
It turns out all wasn’t well.
It was around midday and anyone who had an appointment after me was going to be kept waiting for a while.
In the space of 30 seconds, my life turned on a sixpence.
It turns out the pain in the buttock was an infection. The reason it was unusual was because my blood should have been capable of fighting such things with ease. It seems my BT doctor should have made a little more of a fuss about the blood test I had back in February.
She proceeded to say sentences with words in that no one wants to hear in a doctor’s surgery which involved “10% of normal levels”…. “blood transfusion”… “haematologist and “leukaemia”….
My girlfriend was called from work.
I had tunnel vision and my life flashed before me. The invincible, 27 year old, healthy, fit, Asia-Pac travelling, young man, was no longer invincible.
Considering it was 13 years ago, I remember the next few weeks vividly.
I was with a specialist haematologist within about 2 hours.
He and I sat stony faced across his desk and after some initial introductions, I asked the very simple question anyone reading this would have asked, because it’s the only thing that matters at that time.
“Am I going to die?”
“I don’t know”, was the reply. “We need to do some tests to find out what’s wrong.”
Later that afternoon, I had dozens of viles of blood taken, a bone marrow scrape (which is the most unpleasant thing I’ve ever had happen to me) and various other scans over the space of 2 hours.
Our walk back through the station at Town Hall in Sydney I remember so clearly – it was like one of those sequences in the movies – where they put a mist round you and everyone else is slightly blurred out… “Why me?” is all I remember asking time and time again.
We then went home to call our respective mum and dads. Not the call they were expecting. Not easy calls to make.
For the next two weeks I had lots more tests scheduled in. The doctors and nurses were incredible and the private health insurance I was given 24 hours before I left the country was a godsend. For those two weeks I had no idea if I was going to have my life shortened to just 27 years or whether I would be OK, or something in between.
I went back to the consultant for the diagnosis a couple of weeks later. By now it was the middle of August and a beautiful Sydney winter. The sky was so blue as we went in to the consulting rooms – I remember looking up at it before I went in, unsure of how I would be feeling like when I came out. As moments go in life – this was a moment.
Narrowing it down
They’d narrowed it down to three possible causes – one very bad, one bad and one not too bad. In order to complete the diagnosis, I had to have my spleen removed. It was three times the size it should have been, as it had been filtering pretty rubbish blood for who knows how many months or years. Removing it would help with treating me, as well as helping to absolutely diagnose the problem.
We left and called my parents. It was news… it wasn’t great news, but it could have been worse. There was hope and things were starting to happen. Everything is so much easier when things start to happen. It’s probably one of the reasons for me being obsessed with taking action today. Sometimes pausing is a better solution.
A week or so later I went into hospital to say goodbye to my spleen. My days as a sixpack model were numbered, and trips to Malarial countries were now out the window, however it was a small price to pay.
The operation was on 28th August 1997.
Three days later on 31st August 1997, as I was recovering from the operation and the morphine had been taken away 🙁 the doctor came to see me. My spleen had been whisked off to the lab and chopped into tiny pieces and put under a microscope. They could finally see what had been going on over the last few months and probably years.
They had narrowed it down to one of the three possibilities on a day where history was being made for all the wrong reasons back in the UK.
I’ll publish part 2 on Friday. (Part 2 is now live – here!)
[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Have you seen what I’m doing for our charity challenge later in 2012?
CLICK HERE to find out and please DONATE something small if you can.
[/box]
A review of Putler – the best Paypal app ever
in Get tech savvyIf you use Paypal for your online transactions, and chances are you do, then you’re going to thank yourself for reading this review.
For years people selling services online have used Paypal, but have struggled with their website. It’s slow, it’s clunky and it’s NOT intuitive at all. Processing refunds and analysing data are a nightmare and it should be a dream.
It now is.
With this revolutionary new Adobe Air desktop app for Mac or PC, the Putler team have created an interface into your Paypal account. It has dashboards, it is fast, it provides automatic analysis on how your business is doing.
In short, it is totally awesome and life changing if you deal with Paypal every day.
You can download Putler right here for FREE to get you going.
Enjoy.