Category: Startup Journey

I’m impulsive to say the least when I get a new business idea. I realise I need to rein in my entrepreneurial sprint reaction and come up with a new way to test business ideas

My dormant list of domain names OR “The Cabinet of Curiously Failed Million Dollar Dreams”, as I like to call it, is testament to the ideas I’ve had over the years.

Here’s how it goes, an idea pings into my head, it’s a shiny new object and I need to start to run with it, like a gazelle bounding over the savanna.  The domain name will be purchased, the website developed. I’ll write processes to scale an idea that has no traction yet.

I’ve come up for breath too many times after spending 2-3 days on a build only to launch to the sound of crickets.

It’s like an addiction to shiny new ideas, I’ve done it dozens of times, I’ve wasted too much time and money on new business ideas that go nowhere.  I desperately need a new way to test business ideas.

A New Idea Just Happened

As you may or may not know I offer WordPress care plans for my clients, I look after backups, updates, monitoring and fix the site if it crashes, has errors or is hacked, it’s a great productized service, I have it down to an art with processes and procedures.

One of my care plan clients (a web designer I work with) asks me, can I white label my care plan for her clients?

I give it some thought, yes I can customise my reports to use her logo and branding colours, yes I can send emails from her domain name as if I’m part of her team, yes I can add a new area to my helpdesk for alerts and messages that looks like it’s part of her business.

I setup her clients in the new white labelled fashion and everything is great, that’s when the idea worm took hold.

I bet I can setup a new domain name, hire a team and offer white label services to solopreneur web designers and web developers.  I’ll offer a done for you service that takes very little time from the professional and gives them a relatively passive income steam – awesome sauce.  If I can find 2083 customers that’s a million dollar business.

I’m looking at domain names before you know it and the cycle starts again.

STOP!

“STOP!” I shouted at myself in my office in reality I shouted “Stop it you stupid F!*ck*~g idiot you are doing it again!”.

Just because one person asks for something it does not a business build.

Things I learned this week #1345 when you replace characters in a swear word with other characters that is called a grawlix.

My New Mantra

I will not buy a domain name today …

This mantra allows me to buy one in the future just not today 🙂

I need A Test Methodology

I’ve realised when I get into this mode I need a way to test my hypothesis. I’ve read all the Lean Startup books, I know about minimum viable products so why don’t I apply that to my new ideas.

Here’s My Methodology

• Build out a minimum viable service
• Build a Client Persona
• Cold reach out to at least 100 people meeting this client persona
• If I can sell to 1 person I give myself permission to run and let the wind blow through my entrepreneurial hair.

Minimum Viable Service

I’m in the service business game, but if it was a product the same thing applies.

How can I white label my care plan service doing the very least amount of work so it can be implemented if I get a sale?

Easy, sell it as a service under the NeilMatthews.com umbrella using my existing tools and techniques, use the lessoned learned by my first white labelling.

Nothing to build here, it all already exists.

Build A Customer Profile

I know, I know this is old hat, but it’s not something I’ve really looked into, build a potential customer persona and reach out to those people as potential clients for the new service.

So Jenny is a self employed web designer.  She uses WordPress to make amazing looking websites.  She is a designer not a developer and works with other self employed developers when she needs custom coding beyond her skills.

Jenny suffers from the feast and famine cycle of freelancer work and is looking to flatten that curve with some recurring passive income.  She’s thought of info products and hosting, if only there was another way to make passive income.

Selling To A Cold Customer

A lot of my business ideas revolve around the idea that I can sell it do you (my dear readers) via my email list.

This works to a certain degree but I burnt through my list pretty quickly, a lot of the times and I don’t reach the business levels of success I need to make this new idea work.

My new methodology involves being able to sell to a cold audience, not an existing one.  If I can do that it opens me up to paid advertising and scaling my new business idea beyond my current audience.

Linked In Prospecting

I’ve found a tool called LinkedIn Sales navigator, it allows me to find people on LinkedIn who meet my client persona.

I’m going to reach out to 100 people on linked in to test my idea and also my messaging  I can split test and see what works or does not work. The messages I use for successful sales can be used in my copy in my website build, if and only if my cold selling works.

So I’ve signed up for a free trial of LinkedIn Navigator, this is a pretty nifty tool that presents me with a list of contacts based upon a search I’ve created namely:

• Company size – self employed
• Geography – united kingdom (I’m speaking to my people first)
• Job Title – web designer

That search meets my persona of Jenny perfectly.

Work In Progress

So I’m looking for and reaching out to 10 people per day, I’m sending a manually crafted and personalised LinkedIn Message

It’s not scalable but it tests my idea perfectly and proves if there is a need for white labelled care plans for solopreneur web designers and developers.

Wrap up  – My New

I’ve spent about an hour setting up the service and there will be a 30 minutes per day prospecting, pretty low rate of effort at the moment.

You may or may not hear more about my white label care plans, but one things for sure I’m testing in depth before I start work on that website.

So WLCarePlan.com is available I see …

Photo by joel herzog on Unsplash It’s a Gazelle running FFS it’s a metaphor for me running with a new idea.

In my last post about building a business you love to work in and on,  I wrote about the idea of a µAgency, today I want to expand on that idea and explain just what this concept is and how it could possibly work for you.

Remember I operate a no-guru policy so I’m giving pointers only.

Definition

µ – Greek letter micro, which in our definition means very small.

A micro agency is you the principal consultant plus another person, so it’s a team based agency but a very very small one, as small as you can possibly be and still be considered an agency.

You will continue to deliver your existing services but you will add some additional complimentary ones that are not delivered by you.

Who Is It For

The µAgency is for freelancers who are ready to take their business to a new level but don’t want to work solely on their business, they still want to be in the business chipping away at their client’s coal face.

You are not looking to build something huge, just an amazing lifestyle business that delivers your income goals, is fun to run and creates massive personal freedom.

You’ve probably tried other leveraged income ideas, but they were not a great match with your services business (info products, affiliates selling), what I’m suggesting is a companion service that goes with your main “thing” but is not delivered by you.

You are not a manager, have no desire to be a manager, you want the smallest team possible while delivering an excellent µService.

You’ve Done Your 10,000 Hours

As a freelancer you have served your apprenticeship and have done your 10k hours of work to be called a master craftsman/woman of your thing.

You know how to do your thing, how to deliver excellent service.

It feels like you need to find another person with your skill sets to expand your business, and the costs and risk are very scary to you.

You have reach a plateau and are looking to develop your business but the idea of finding another you is very intimidating, what I’m suggesting with a µAgency is that you don’t need another you with all your skills and associated costs, build a small service your clients needs which can be delivered by a junior team member.

What It Solves

It solves a number of the issues we as /solo freelancers selling services suffer from.

Break the time = money limit – there is an upper limit on your income because of the finite number of available hours you have, the µAgency gives you leverage by using other people’s time, software tools and processes.

Flattens the feast famine cycle – much like the above point freelancers have a rollercoaster of income, sometimes there is a lot of work we need to take on because we know down the line there will be a famine time where work is scare and we have limited income, this idea helps to create a more level income stream.

Take time off and still earn – your agency will be bringing in money regardless of whether you are working or not.  This will  allow you holidays, sabbaticals and leisure time oh my!

Recurring Revenue – If you develop the product your agency delivers properly you can develop a recurring revenue from your  µAgency.

What The µAgency is Not

It’s not a get rich quick scheme, it needs to be carefully nurture and sold to existing clients.

It’s not 100% passive, you need to put lots of time in at the front end developing your agency, and a certain amount of time monitoring and managing your agency as it goes along (don’t panic it’s not going to be a huge time suck).

For everyone,  if you get a feeling of worth from a massive business, this is sooo not for you, if you want 100% passive income remember you are still the principal delivering your “thing” service.  If you want to sell your business again it’s going to be hard to sell a job.

µAgency Evolution

With all that being said are you ready to evolve from a freelancer / solopreneur into a  µAgency?

You may be happy where you are as solo freelancer but here are some key indicators you are ready to start your  µAgency.

• Your income has plateaued and you are booked solid, you cannot earn any more
• You struggle to take time off
• If you do take time of there is a massive struggle before hand to get everything in a row and generate enough income to cover your costs.
• You have had a couple of bad weeks with no income
• You cannot do that thing because you are tied to your job
• You want to level the income rollercoaster
• You want a more passive income steam
• You want recurring revenue so the start of each month is not dialled back to zero each 1st of the month

µRetainer

The first step in your evolution is to start selling  µRetainers.

One of the problems I wanted to solve was the up and down  of income as a freelancer, and the best way I saw to do this was selling retainers.  A retainer is a recurring revenue stream where services are delivered each month to your clients.

I call it a micro retainer because you will be selling lots of small pieces of work to many clients, not a big chunk of your time to a single client.

This has a number of benefits:

1. It’s a small piece of work so it is usually cheaper than a normal engagement with you and easier to sell.
2. It’s sold to lots and lots of clients so there is no single point of failure if a client decides to stop working with you, or you decide to stop working with them if they are a pain in the arse. Remember this is all about building a business you love to operate, not have painful clients dictate what you are doing.

The µRetainer is not an À la carte service where your client can call down you or your team’s time as they see fit, no it is a defined piece of work that is done on a recurring basis the same way to all clients, I call this a µProductized Service …

µProductized Service

Remember the goal is not to sell your time, you know how to do that already, that is your bread and butter, you are looking to sell a productise service that your client needs and can be sold as a retainer.

The anatomy of a productized service looks like this:

• As a backend upsell, a complimentary service to your main “thing”
• Very useful and important to your client
• Can be driven by processes
• Is teachable to team members
• Is repeatable and standard for all clients
• Does not need your 10,000 hours of experise
• Needs to be done on a recurring basis
• Easy to manage
• Does not need lots of your time – you should be spending time serving your clients with your front end services, not your back end product
• Leverage people. sofware tools and processes to make it almost hands off

I don’t know what you business is so I cannot say what your service should be but hopefully this points you in the right direction.

Selling µProductized Service

You might think I’m putting the cart before the horse here, there is no team to deliver the service yet, but  you should sell some µRetainers and deliver the service yourself before building your team.

You need to document and create processes for your service so it is delivered correctly by doing it yourself you can understand the service completly, create processes, find the pain points and solve any issues before delegating the work.  You also get to set the quality levels you require so the service is delivered to your standards and does not impact upon your reputation.

Pre-selling the service and delivering it yourself proves there is a need for the work, there is nothing worse than sacking people because you cannot cover their wage cost.

I suggest you sell your retainer as a back end service not a front end one. This give you a chance to evaluate a client in a one off project before you work with them for a prolonged period of time, no one wants to work with a douche for the long term.

It is far easier to sell a retainer to a happy client than it is to pitch an ongoing service to a new client.  I had a dream that I could sell a recurring maintenance plan to cold clients, it was very very hard, I now sell this service on the back end.

µTeam

Once you have your µService idea and have sold enough micro retainers to cover a team members salary it’s time to build your µTeam.

Let’s talk about the size of your team. I’m talking about part time or maximum of a single person full time making up your micro team. This keeps the agency tiny and limits the amount

What does this mean, you need to package your service so a single person can do it and still meet your income goals.  There will be an upper limit to what they can do too, so look at processes, software tools and automation plus a person to do the work.

I don’t recommend employing someone in the traditional sense that they become employees of your business.  Personally I run my business under a UK business structure of Sole Trader. If I take on a traditional employee I have to incorporate, pay additional taxes, national insurance, PAYE, pension plans, the list goes on.

Screw that I want as simple as business structure as possible so I choose to work with like minded entrepreneurs who have started their own business and work as contractors.

Recruitment is far beyond the scope of this article but I’ll cover my ideas of Nearsourcing in a future post.

No µManagement

The beauty of the µAgency is the is no µManagement, your job is not to be a manager of the agency, it’s to set it up, create processes and rules so the delivery of that service works without you.

Automate it as much as possible with software and tools. You can do this during the phase when you are delivering the process yourself.

Document how the service is done, down the to

Recruit a self starter who can deliver the service to your vision without a lot of hand holding.

So when you are bulding your productize service create processes that are repeatable and “checkable” so you can ensure the quality of the services being delivered by your team member are

Delegate don’t abdicate (hat tip to e-myth) make sure you are checking the work down regularly and it’s to your standards. That does not take a lot of your time.

Remember your job is still to deliver you high end, front end services, the µService is a back end add-on delivered by your team member.

Example My µAgency

My µAgency is based around my productized service offering WP Insure.

WP Insure is an ongoing maintenance plan where we look after the ongoing maintenance needs all WordPress sites.  It costs $29 per site per month, I have over 100 sites under maintenance. So I have lots of small payments from many sources on a recurring basis.

We do the following:

• Fix on fail – if anything breaks we fix it
• Backups
• Updates
• Monitoring
• Reporting
• Email Support

I use managewp software to control this work and I have my team member(s) monitoring the work fixing any exceptions and providing fix on fail services.

I have help desk software where alerts are sent if we spot an issue automatically and an email address [email protected], to which my WP Insure clients can sends their fix on fail requests that we did not spot.

I have two part time team members making up a single e-team member.  These are two contractors I worked with on a previous iteration when I was trying to build a maximal agency, but that is yet another story.

I’ve built processes around canned responses in the help desk (which I use for my front end services too ) so issues are handled in the same way each time.

We send weekly reports to my clients to update them on the work done.

Payments are via a recurring invoice sent automatically from my Freshbooks account, Freshbooks also sends out automated reminders to prompt people to pay their bill if they forget.

Inside the help desk is a knowledge base where I can distil my experience into solutions for fix on fail scenarios.  As time has gone on I need to create less and less of these articles.

I spend very little time delivering WP Insure services, my team does the work.  I spend very little time managing my team they are self starters and know how to get things done. We communicate via our help desk when they need my help./

I may sound cold about my team, but they know they can hit me up on Skype if they have an issues or need to chat.

Wrap Up – µAgency

None of this is new, the problems a µAgency solve are not new to freelancers.

I’ve distilled the advice from a number of books and courses into my own best fit agency model, one that solves client problems, solves my freelancer problems and matches my temperaments, little team management, under control for my control freak tendencies makes money for me on a recurring basis, flattened my feast famine cycle, it’s a great model for me and I hope it can be useful for you.

What do you think?  Is it a good fit for you.  What µRetainer could you offer your clients that could be outsourced?

Should I ® µAgency, this could be the bestseller I’ve always wanted to write and my path to Gurudom 🙂

For the geeks, you can use the html entity to show the micro sign µ

Photo Credit: artsci.salon Flickr via Compfight cc

In my last post about building a business you love to work in and on,  I wrote about the idea of a µAgency, today I want to expand on that idea and explain just what this concept is and how it could possibly work for you.

Remember I operate a no-guru policy so I’m giving pointers only.

Definition

µ – Greek letter micro, which in our definition means very small.

A micro agency is you the principal consultant plus another person, so it’s a team based agency but a very very small one, as small as you can possibly be and still be considered an agency.

You will continue to deliver your existing services but you will add some additional complimentary ones that are not delivered by you.

Who Is It For

The µAgency is for freelancers who are ready to take their business to a new level but don’t want to work solely on their business, they still want to be in the business chipping away at their client’s coal face.

You are not looking to build something huge, just an amazing lifestyle business that delivers your income goals, is fun to run and creates massive personal freedom.

You’ve probably tried other leveraged income ideas, but they were not a great match with your services business (info products, affiliates selling), what I’m suggesting is a companion service that goes with your main “thing” but is not delivered by you.

You are not a manager, have no desire to be a manager, you want the smallest team possible while delivering an excellent µService.

You’ve Done Your 10,000 Hours

As a freelancer you have served your apprenticeship and have done your 10k hours of work to be called a master craftsman/woman of your thing.

You know how to do your thing, how to deliver excellent service.

It feels like you need to find another person with your skill sets to expand your business, and the costs and risk are very scary to you.

You have reach a plateau and are looking to develop your business but the idea of finding another you is very intimidating, what I’m suggesting with a µAgency is that you don’t need another you with all your skills and associated costs, build a small service your clients needs which can be delivered by a junior team member.

What It Solves

It solves a number of the issues we as /solo freelancers selling services suffer from.

Break the time = money limit – there is an upper limit on your income because of the finite number of available hours you have, the µAgency gives you leverage by using other people’s time, software tools and processes.

Flattens the feast famine cycle – much like the above point freelancers have a rollercoaster of income, sometimes there is a lot of work we need to take on because we know down the line there will be a famine time where work is scare and we have limited income, this idea helps to create a more level income stream.

Take time off and still earn – your agency will be bringing in money regardless of whether you are working or not.  This will  allow you holidays, sabbaticals and leisure time oh my!

Recurring Revenue – If you develop the product your agency delivers properly you can develop a recurring revenue from your  µAgency.

What The µAgency is Not

It’s not a get rich quick scheme, it needs to be carefully nurture and sold to existing clients.

It’s not 100% passive, you need to put lots of time in at the front end developing your agency, and a certain amount of time monitoring and managing your agency as it goes along (don’t panic it’s not going to be a huge time suck).

For everyone,  if you get a feeling of worth from a massive business, this is sooo not for you, if you want 100% passive income remember you are still the principal delivering your “thing” service.  If you want to sell your business again it’s going to be hard to sell a job.

µAgency Evolution

With all that being said are you ready to evolve from a freelancer / solopreneur into a  µAgency?

You may be happy where you are as solo freelancer but here are some key indicators you are ready to start your  µAgency.

• Your income has plateaued and you are booked solid, you cannot earn any more
• You struggle to take time off
• If you do take time of there is a massive struggle before hand to get everything in a row and generate enough income to cover your costs.
• You have had a couple of bad weeks with no income
• You cannot do that thing because you are tied to your job
• You want to level the income rollercoaster
• You want a more passive income steam
• You want recurring revenue so the start of each month is not dialled back to zero each 1st of the month

µRetainer

The first step in your evolution is to start selling  µRetainers.

One of the problems I wanted to solve was the up and down  of income as a freelancer, and the best way I saw to do this was selling retainers.  A retainer is a recurring revenue stream where services are delivered each month to your clients.

I call it a micro retainer because you will be selling lots of small pieces of work to many clients, not a big chunk of your time to a single client.

This has a number of benefits:

1. It’s a small piece of work so it is usually cheaper than a normal engagement with you and easier to sell.
2. It’s sold to lots and lots of clients so there is no single point of failure if a client decides to stop working with you, or you decide to stop working with them if they are a pain in the arse. Remember this is all about building a business you love to operate, not have painful clients dictate what you are doing.

The µRetainer is not an À la carte service where your client can call down you or your team’s time as they see fit, no it is a defined piece of work that is done on a recurring basis the same way to all clients, I call this a µProductized Service …

µProductized Service

Remember the goal is not to sell your time, you know how to do that already, that is your bread and butter, you are looking to sell a productise service that your client needs and can be sold as a retainer.

The anatomy of a productized service looks like this:

• As a backend upsell, a complimentary service to your main “thing”
• Very useful and important to your client
• Can be driven by processes
• Is teachable to team members
• Is repeatable and standard for all clients
• Does not need your 10,000 hours of experise
• Needs to be done on a recurring basis
• Easy to manage
• Does not need lots of your time – you should be spending time serving your clients with your front end services, not your back end product
• Leverage people. sofware tools and processes to make it almost hands off

I don’t know what you business is so I cannot say what your service should be but hopefully this points you in the right direction.

Selling µProductized Service

You might think I’m putting the cart before the horse here, there is no team to deliver the service yet, but  you should sell some µRetainers and deliver the service yourself before building your team.

You need to document and create processes for your service so it is delivered correctly by doing it yourself you can understand the service completly, create processes, find the pain points and solve any issues before delegating the work.  You also get to set the quality levels you require so the service is delivered to your standards and does not impact upon your reputation.

Pre-selling the service and delivering it yourself proves there is a need for the work, there is nothing worse than sacking people because you cannot cover their wage cost.

I suggest you sell your retainer as a back end service not a front end one. This give you a chance to evaluate a client in a one off project before you work with them for a prolonged period of time, no one wants to work with a douche for the long term.

It is far easier to sell a retainer to a happy client than it is to pitch an ongoing service to a new client.  I had a dream that I could sell a recurring maintenance plan to cold clients, it was very very hard, I now sell this service on the back end.

µTeam

Once you have your µService idea and have sold enough micro retainers to cover a team members salary it’s time to build your µTeam.

Let’s talk about the size of your team. I’m talking about part time or maximum of a single person full time making up your micro team. This keeps the agency tiny and limits the amount

What does this mean, you need to package your service so a single person can do it and still meet your income goals.  There will be an upper limit to what they can do too, so look at processes, software tools and automation plus a person to do the work.

I don’t recommend employing someone in the traditional sense that they become employees of your business.  Personally I run my business under a UK business structure of Sole Trader. If I take on a traditional employee I have to incorporate, pay additional taxes, national insurance, PAYE, pension plans, the list goes on.

Screw that I want as simple as business structure as possible so I choose to work with like minded entrepreneurs who have started their own business and work as contractors.

Recruitment is far beyond the scope of this article but I’ll cover my ideas of Nearsourcing in a future post.

No µManagement

The beauty of the µAgency is the is no µManagement, your job is not to be a manager of the agency, it’s to set it up, create processes and rules so the delivery of that service works without you.

Automate it as much as possible with software and tools. You can do this during the phase when you are delivering the process yourself.

Document how the service is done, down the to

Recruit a self starter who can deliver the service to your vision without a lot of hand holding.

So when you are bulding your productize service create processes that are repeatable and “checkable” so you can ensure the quality of the services being delivered by your team member are

Delegate don’t abdicate (hat tip to e-myth) make sure you are checking the work down regularly and it’s to your standards. That does not take a lot of your time.

Remember your job is still to deliver you high end, front end services, the µService is a back end add-on delivered by your team member.

Example My µAgency

My µAgency is based around my productized service offering WP Insure.

WP Insure is an ongoing maintenance plan where we look after the ongoing maintenance needs all WordPress sites.  It costs $29 per site per month, I have over 100 sites under maintenance. So I have lots of small payments from many sources on a recurring basis.

We do the following:

• Fix on fail – if anything breaks we fix it
• Backups
• Updates
• Monitoring
• Reporting
• Email Support

I use managewp software to control this work and I have my team member(s) monitoring the work fixing any exceptions and providing fix on fail services.

I have help desk software where alerts are sent if we spot an issue automatically and an email address [email protected], to which my WP Insure clients can sends their fix on fail requests that we did not spot.

I have two part time team members making up a single e-team member.  These are two contractors I worked with on a previous iteration when I was trying to build a maximal agency, but that is yet another story.

I’ve built processes around canned responses in the help desk (which I use for my front end services too ) so issues are handled in the same way each time.

We send weekly reports to my clients to update them on the work done.

Payments are via a recurring invoice sent automatically from my Freshbooks account, Freshbooks also sends out automated reminders to prompt people to pay their bill if they forget.

Inside the help desk is a knowledge base where I can distil my experience into solutions for fix on fail scenarios.  As time has gone on I need to create less and less of these articles.

I spend very little time delivering WP Insure services, my team does the work.  I spend very little time managing my team they are self starters and know how to get things done. We communicate via our help desk when they need my help./

I may sound cold about my team, but they know they can hit me up on Skype if they have an issues or need to chat.

Wrap Up – µAgency

None of this is new, the problems a µAgency solve are not new to freelancers.

I’ve distilled the advice from a number of books and courses into my own best fit agency model, one that solves client problems, solves my freelancer problems and matches my temperaments, little team management, under control for my control freak tendencies makes money for me on a recurring basis, flattened my feast famine cycle, it’s a great model for me and I hope it can be useful for you.

What do you think?  Is it a good fit for you.  What µRetainer could you offer your clients that could be outsourced?

Should I ® µAgency, this could be the bestseller I’ve always wanted to write and my path to Gurudom 🙂

For the geeks, you can use the html entity to show the micro sign µ

Photo Credit: artsci.salon Flickr via Compfight cc

It is a very common thing for us to get comments after we have worked on a clients site along the lines of “Since you did X with our site Y no longer works, you touched it last”.

It sparks a deep seated human reaction when you get criticism like this, but I’ve trained myself and my team to handle these situations like this.

Don’t Be Defensive to “You Touched It Last”

I’m working hard on this, but it’s a natural reaction to immediately go on the defensive when your work is questioned.

Whenever I get an email like this the defences still go up, my mind goes something like this “How can adding a contact form possibly impact the colours of their about page button”. I’m immediately thinking it’s not us why should I give over our precious time to help.

It’s a natural thing, the emails come across to us as a criticism, even though it is really a call for “Help!!!”.

Now, I put the email aside for a moment,  go and do another task, make a cup of tea and let the initial adrenaline spike go.  Then I address the problem.

Take Ownership

The first thing I do when we get a “you touched it last” is to take ownership of the problem.

We do this because customer service is important our client wants a fix not a “pass the buck”.

I say take ownership with a caveat,  I’ve had “you touched it lasts” along the lines of six months ago you did Y and now X has broken.  I will add the caveat that we are happy to roll back the changes we have made and test to see if it is causing the issues, but other things could have caused the problem.  Take ownership but at the same time don’t be a doormat.

Roll Back The Changes

You did take a full recoverable back before you made the changes didn’t you :)?  I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again you are only as good as your last backup.  I hammer this into my team in our processes and procedures, the first thing we ever do is take a backup.

If possible we do our work on a cloned staging site so we can test in development before making things live.

Roll back to a point in time before the changes were made and test to see if the situation still exists.  If it does not our changes were to NOT blame, if the issues goes away …

Fess Up If We Have caused An Problem

We never try to cover up an issues we have introduced, we “fess” up to the problem and plan a solution to fix the issue whilst also fixing the original tech support call.

Trying to cover our ass with excuses and double speak never works, we own our mistakes and fix them.

Find  A Solution

Even if we did not cause the issue, the client still has a problem, our job is to find a solution not pass the buck.

We will trouble shoot the problem find what is causing the issue, if it is commercially viable we will fix it for free, then re-apply our new changes, if not we can give the client an idea of the cost to fix the problem.

Just to reiterate if we caused the problem we fix it free of charge.

Too often companies try to pass the buck if it’s not their issue (I’m looking at you hosting companies) our thinking is if we can help, our client, they will come back for more work in the future, if we try to pass the buck it leave a nasty taste in our client’s mouth.

Put Yourself in your Clients Shoes

If you are a the subject matter expert it’s all to easy to see that your work could not possibly have impacted another area, but your client needs your expertise to see this, all they see are your sticky finger prints all over their X and now something is not working.

How To Give Out You Touched It last Feedback.

If you are ever in the position to give feedback to an employee or supplier in a “you touched it last” scenario, can I make a suggestion?

To make  the fix as painless as possible for everyone involved,   don’t  go on the attack with pointy e-fingers and acidic emails. Simply say we noticed an issues after the last update, can you roll it back to see if the changes have caused that problem.

It’s neutral non-accusational and it stops the fight or flight response in the recipient of the email and you will get better results.

Wrap Up

It’s not nice to have your professionalism questioned, but at the end of the day you are the expert and your client has a problem, step up and fix it, is my motto ( well that’s not 100% true  it’s Carpe Pizza but that doesn’t end the blog post very well).

Photo Credit: boiled40 via Compfight cc

I’ve been jumping between CRM (customer relationship management) solutions for some time.  I’ve finally settled on one and I thought I would share the thinking behind why I have chosen Contactually.

Some of the other CRMs I have trialed are

• Salesforce
• Highrise
• Capsule CRM
• Nimble CRM

What I Want A CRM For

I’ve been running wpdude for nearly eight years and in the time I have amassed nearly 7000 contacts, I need a database to manage those contacts.  I want the ability to network with people and reach out to them on an ongoing basis to see if they need help with their WordPress site.

 

Having a database of contacts you can reach out to on a regular basis to generate work from is an incredibly valuable asset.  It stops the feast and famine cycle common with project based work.  It removes the need for paid advertising or working on job bidding sites (hint they are looking for the lowest price).

But What About A Mailing List?

I also have a mailing list of 1700+ contacts who have signed up to hear from me about new blog posts or get my lead magnets, but I have found that not everyone who wants to hire us also wants to take part in our content marketing.

If I limit myself to the 1700 people on my mailchimp list there are more than 5000 contacts I’m not reaching,.

Using a CRM allows me to personalise my reach-out, categorise contacts and generally have more control on how I network with a contact.

My Main Issue With CRM packages

My main issue with the CRM packages I have used (contractually included) are:

• Lot of hard work at the start to setup a “clean” database of useful contacts.
• No visibility of whom to contact.
• Getting all my contacts into one place.
• Keeping contacts updated (automated preferably).
• Ensuring new contacts are added.

Why Contactually Won The CRM War!

In no particular order here are the features that made me select Contactually over the other CRMs out there

Bucketing Contacts

I can place my contacts into one or more bucket or categories to organise my interactions with people I have the following buckets:

WPDude – anyone who has interacted with WPDude

WPDude Clients – people I have worked with or who have requested a quote, people definitely interested in the services we offer

WP Dude maintenance clients – people with a recurring maintenance plan

Do not contact – people who have requested not to be contacted, or their email bounced

Bucket Game

One of the really difficult and time consuming aspects of setting up your CRM is cleaning your database (see below).

Contactually has a great feature called the bucket game where a contact is flashed up with details of your last few interactions and with the click of a button you can assign that person to a bucket.

You are given a hit of 50 contacts to quickly work though and it takes about 5 minutes to allocate them to buckets, a great way to clean up your list when you start work on your CRM.

Integration With Gmail

One of the best features in my opinion.  Contractually  integrated with my Gmail account and automatically creates a history of my email interactions

When I look at a contact I can see the emails they have sent me and I have sent to them via my Gmail account.

Not having to manually build up that history has saved me countless hours.

Automated List Of Contacts to Erm Contact

In Contactually I can say that I want to contact people in a particular bucket every X days, and I want to contact Y people per day.

Contactually does this for me, I have said I want to reach out to existing clients every 90 days and I want to do that to 10 customers per day.  Contractually organises that list, and I work through them as part of my daily routine.  I send an email checking in seeing if they need help from us.  This is all done inside Contractually some CRMs make you jump over to your email client which is a real pain.

Here is the screen of contacts I’m presented each day.

Scalemail

You can also send out email blasts with my chosen CRM.

If you want to reach lots of people quickly you can with scalemail.  I have been using that as part of my database cleaning routine to quickly contact old contacts to see if they still need WordPress help.

Integrations

I’m a big fan of automating as much work as possible, I’m using the following integrations:

• Mailchimp – people are automatically added to my CRM if they opt in to
• Zapier – anyone requesting a quote is added to my database via Zapier
• Freshbooks – I downloaded my Freshbooks database manually and uploaded it as a CSV to Contactually
• Gmail – see above

Cleaning Your Database

I cannot overstate the importance of cleaning your database, it’s hard tedious work but once you have removed the people not interested in your product or service, you are left with a gold mine of contacts.  When I reach out I get several leads per day.

When I first started using Contacually it was presenting me contacts that were very old that had not been reached out to or some time.  As a result I was getting lots of old bouncing emails, people not interested in WordPress any more.

I’ve spent about 8 weeks cleaning 50 contacts per day.  I remove bounced emails and people asking to unsubscribe or let me know they don’t use WordPress any more.

Be prepared for the Asshats you had forgotten about. They are still in your un-cleaned database waiting to catch you out.   I’ve reached out to people who I had forgotten about,  but have had poor interactions with in the past.  Some people bare grudges and will let you know, how dare I send an email to someone who I did not want to quote on their job four years ago 🙂

Downsides

Contractually has it’s downsides too.

It’s expensive compared to other CRM solutions, I’m paying $35 per month for their basic package

There is no opt out of a CRM like there is for email, so I’m doing a lot of manual work removing people from my list.

Other Features  I Don’t Use Any More

There are a couple of features that I don’t use any more:

• Programs – automate your marketing with a program, I found automatic outreach was sending generic emails to people, but could be useful
• Pipelines – if you have a long sales cycle you can move your prospects through a process of qualification, sales meetings etc, this was more effort than it was worth in my business.

Wrap Up

CRMing is gruelling at first you need to spend that time cleaning your db to get rid of the dead contacts, people who don’t want you but once you do Contactually  or any other CRM for that matter gives you a gold mine of contacts to prospect .  When you pan your contacts projects seem to appear ( can I get any more gold mining references into one paragraph, oh yes I can ) and that is a useful nugget of information.

Contactually has a free trial give it a go, but bare in mind cleaning your DB will probably take longer than your trial period 🙂

Additional reading I first found about about Contactually with the excellent read Book Yourself Solid, this is well worth a read for any service providers out there.

Photo Credit: flazingo_photos via Compfight cc

There is a piece of paper on my cork board right in my eye line where I work.  It says “Do One Thing”.

This is a personal note to myself to keep on target and stop veering off with every new idea that pops into my mind.

I Like The Shiny & New

My problem is I love that feeling of new investigation, building something brand new and chasing the shiny object.  It happens to me at least once per week and my sign pulls me back from the brink.

The idea of building a repeatable, scalable business at WPDude.com sounds great, but in effects it’s a lot of hard work.

My mind plays tricks with me and tells me there is money to be made in the latest technique or gadget.  That I should follow that and change course from my one thing.

What Is My One Thing

My one thing is providing WordPress technical support to small business that do not have an in-house technical team.

We do small technical projects that are beyond the skills or time demands of the site owner.

It’s simple, not particularly glamorous, but there are huge demands for these skills and it is my job to package the technical savvy of my team into an easily consumable product.

At the time of writing we have been involved in 4239 projects, that’s a lot of work inside of my one thing. It works, people need it. I need to focus on that one thing and make it as accessible to my clients as possible.

My sign on the wall tells me I need to do that one thing until I can make an exit.

One Thing Two Packages

Our one thing comes in two packages:

• One off small projects– we will take on fixed priced small projects to provide technical support to fix a single issue (I’m looking at making this a single price to make it ever simpler).
• On Going Maintenance – we will provide ongoing WordPress technical support for a monthly fee.

I would love to provide a single type of packaging, but you, as the client has told me you want the choice of how you get your WordPress technical support so I’m okay with that.

One Team To Do One Thing

I’m building a team to provide that do one thing in the most cost efficient manner possible.

I’m looking to make providing WordPress technical support to my clients more like a household trade you would call in,  people are happy hiring a plumber to fix their leak, I want to make hiring technical support for your crashed website a similar experience.

Mistakes I’ve Made Not Doing My One Thing.

When I veer away from my one thing, I always lose focus, and as a result WPDude is impacted.

I’m not good at juggling many balls so my focus will go to the shiny new object, marketing and sales at wpdude.com go down as a result.  I wrote about this in Have We Reached Peak Podcast.

Here are some of the side projects I have tried and ultimately closed down:

• WordPress Owners Club – this was my membership site to teach people how to use WordPress, remember everyone was telling us to sell productised coaching.
• WebPolyglot – I was building a service business to only focus on web site owners who need multi language websites, remember we were told to go deep niche (I’ve merged this back into my one thing).
• WPPing – I thought a software as a service that would alert you when your website was down or running slowly was a winner, a recurring Software as a service is the next shiny thing I was told.
• Custom theme and plugin development – we offered these but they are not really required by my core audience of small businesses, we had minor wins but not enough to keep the lights on.
• App Development – I’m still keen to pursue building an agency to develop apps, but that will be after exit.
• Dozens of purchased then lapsed domain names – every new idea starts with a $15 purchase then lapse of a domain name, in my to sunset domain list are wpguard.co, wpping.com, theknowledge.co, bright ideas with no implementation.

When Can I Move Onto The Next Thing?

I can move onto the next thing once I have made an exit from this one thing, what do I mean by an exit?

An exit to me is when I automate, systematise and reduce my input to WPDude, so I don’t need to be there on a day to day basis to deliver our one thing service.

This will take some time, so my exit it not coming soon, so I’m still focusing on this one thing.

How I Scratch My “Need For The New” Itch

I’ve got a lifelong desire to learn new things, so I’m putting my energies into learning how to run a business . The shiny new things I’m focusing on:

• Building a team.
• Creating processes and systems to replace myself.
• Learning to be a business owner not a freelancer.
• Spending more time marketing and growing my brand.

All these things are brand new to be and are definitely feeding my desire for new, but are inside my do one thing.

Wrap Up – Do One Thing

Do you have the same tendencies as me to chase after the new shiny thing?

If you are not careful is there a chance you will never fulfill your business potenti …. look a squirrell!!!

 

I run WP Dude from my home office. I thought I would write a post on my thoughts on working from home.

I’ve been working from home for going on eight years now, so I’ve accumulated lots of pointers.

About My Home Office

My home office is a dedicated room in our house just for me to work in. It’s a tiny space at about 2m x 2m (7ft x 7ft) but it is perfect for me and more than enough room to run a global WordPress development agency.

It’s painted white (and needs re-decorating it’s looking a little shabby ) and is minimally furnished.  A desk, a chair,  some draws, a lamp, a cork board, a bin and pictures from my kids. Computer, diary, notepad and that’s about it, that’s all I need to run my business.

The myth about bricks and mortar buildings with all staff working in one place died about ten years ago, and any company saying this will not work really means they don’t know how to manage a remote company.

Why should we be marching like automatons to the meat grinder factory when you can work from home?

Here’s a picture I just took with my back right back against the wall, so what you see is nearly all of my office space.

In No Particular Order..

Here are a lists of the pros and cons of working from your home office

No Commute

I used to give up two hours of my life everyday sitting on a bus.  I live in a small but busy city in the North of England, the city is over 900 years old.  Like most old European cities, the  streets and infrastructure are not designed for cars, so driving to work is an even longer journey.

I was forced to be penned up in a bus with other grey faced commuters coughing and sputtering, creating a cocoon of my own with Kindle and iPod to blot out the terrible nature of other people’s dire conversations.

Now, the five second stroll across the landing is my commute and the hop skip and jump back to my couch is a breeze.

Put A Door On Your Space

If at all possible create a physical barrier between you, your workspace and the rest of the world.

At the end of my working day, my kids are also sharing the space where I work (or as they selfishly call it home 🙂 ) my home office has a door on it, the rules are when the door is closed keep the noise down and leave me alone, I’m on the phone or doing something like narrating a video that needs quiet.

I can also close that door as an end to the working day to create a physical end to my days work (I talk about this more later).

Having a barrier on your work space rather than using communal spaces is really useful

Ergonomic Setup / Standing Desk

You will be spending a lot of time with your ass in that chair, buy the best one you can.

Lookup ergonomic posture and try and get your desk / chair / computer setup the best it can be.

Seriously consider a stand up /sitting down desk setup, I’m currently looking at one that will allow me to be up and down due to lower back aches and strains at times.

Eating

Be careful.

Eat well

Take the time to prepare fresh and nutritious food.

Family

I’m married with two kids.

I had full time jobs where I used to head out early morning, do my thing, then come home late exhausted. I spent more time with colleagues than my young family.

I gave that up and started to contract as a self employed person.  I used to work away during the week and only see them at the weekend.

I hated both models and wanted self employment, but from home,  building wpdude as a home base business has been one of the best things I have ever done.

I’m present with my kids during their morning , rather than dashing off at dawn to catch a bus. We spend time over breakfast I help them get ready and see them off to school.  My wife drives them there and then heads off to work herself.

It’s my job to collect them from school,make them their tea as we say in northern England (dinner or evening meal to the rest of the world) listen to their stories, have a laugh and do a few more hours work before finishing for the day.  Sometimes we sit down to watch a movie, in the warmer months we might go to the park or go on an “adventure” walk somewhere.

I’m always present at their events, because I make my own schedule and can juggle it.  I don’t have to be at someone else’s location.

Establish A Routine and Stick To It

This is a big one, create and set a routine, then stick to it.  My current routine

• 8:00 Kids and Wife Leave
• 8:00-9:00 Project management, stand up meeting with my team
• 9:00-12:00 Project work
• 12:00-13:00 LUNCH break a full hour may seem excessive but I exercise, meditate cook and eat real food in that time.  This is my mid day oasis.
• 13:00-15:00 Project work
• 15:00-15:00 Collect kids from school
• 15:30-18:00 Sales & Marketing or admin work

It’s a 10 hour day but I can honestly say it never feels like one, that big break in the middle really helps keep me energised.

Know Your Energy

My peak energy times are 9-12 and 13-15 that’s when I focus on client work.

Sales and marketing or admin which tend to be less taxing for me are done outside of those hour with the exception of my blog posts which are written during the 9-12 timeslot.

When you make your own schedule working from home, schedule the hard work when you perform best, not when the boss tells you.

Weekends

I don’t work at weekends, no more to say on that.

On Loneliness

I’m an introverted chap and I don’t mind my own company, but there are times when I crave human contact.

Make sure you get out of the house at least once a day.

Make sure you schedule social time away from home.

Fill up your weekends with other people and other places, you can get cabin fever.

Dealing With Interrupting People

There is a mindset with some people that equates working from home as being available.

I’m not available to grab a coffee at 9am Monday because you are off work,  I’m at fecking work!!!

You have to be a little harsh and let people know your working hours and make people stick to that.

Self Discipline

A lot of people say “I couldn’t do that I don’t have the self discipline to work at home!”.

My answer is simple continue working at your shitty office doing something that does not create a spark in you.  If you want to work from home (probably self employed) you need self discipline.

I’m building a business, it’s hard, really hard, some days are crappy but on average I really love what I do, building a business and a team is fun.

I’ve created my own self discipline to get the work done.  If I don’t I don’t get paid simple as that.

Switching Spaces

I switch spaces to create mental gaps in the type of work I do.

If I’m managing WP Dude projects or doing WordPress technical support I’m in the office pictured above.

If I’m doing research,  reading a business book, doing planning or taking a course, I switch spaces so I’m not at the computer where Skype or email ping will distract me.

We have a space where the kids keep their toys and other junk, but it has a couch I can use as a separate thinking space.

Shabbiness

When I first started working from home  I drifted into a period of shabbiness, I would get up, get into my inbox and work would ensue, the beard grew and work was done in Jammies.

Nowadays, the inbox is untouched until the personal grooming has been done.

I’m not putting on a suit and tie any more (in what universe was it decided that wrapping a piece of cloth around your neck makes you professional)  but you can descend into shabbiness when you think no-one is looking.

Get Some Exercise!

You can quickly become very sedentary when you work from home.  Make sure you take some exercise.

For me it’s a combination of walking to collect my kids from school each day and using the 7 minute work out app.  The app gives you a series of body weight exercises to do in 30 seconds sprints with 10 second recovery, you do seven minutes or multiples thereof.

I used to run, but the act of getting my kit on and getting out the door was very easy to put off when the projects stack up.  The 7 minute work out is only ( as the name suggests duh!) 7 minutes, you just need to find some space to do it, the mental objections are less and the workout gets done.

Meditation

I used to think meditation was woo-woo nonsense, that’s until I started to do it.

My practise is not spiritual,  although I understand it can be, it’s a a tool to create calm in what can sometimes be a roller coaster ride as an entrepreneur.

I use an app called Headspace, it provides a guided meditation to clear your mind for 20 minutes, and focus only on your breathing, that’s all, no chakra clearing, no mantras just a little bit of calm to help you deal with a busy world.

Because I work from home I can squirrel myself away from the world and do 20 minutes meditation and the rest of the world does not look at me as if I’m mental. It is one of my favourite parts of the day.

End Of Day Shut-down

As a digital worker it’s very easy to be always on.

I’ve created a process where I shut down at the end of the day.

At approximately 6pm and sometimes earlier that’s the end of business day for me.  I’ll shift devices from computer to iPad to catch up on some social reading such as the new and blogs I follow.  That shift in device is a mental signal that I’m in a different mode not work mode.

The computer is switched off.  The iPhone is put on charge and left beside my computer so I don’t check email all the time.

But what about text messages from friends or family, they know to catch me before 6pm after that they can call the land line or contact me through my wife.  The people who really need me out of office hours know how to get me.

If I’ve got access to email or my work apps, I’ve got access to work and there is always a temptation to jump back into work, because it is so easy.

The door to the office is closed.  The working day is shut-down.

Costs Of Working From Home

The cost of running a home office is absorbed into my home running costs, electricity, water, heating etc.  You should not underestimate this.  You will use more of your utilities.

In the UK there is an allowance we can add to our tax return to cover these costs, check to see if you can do that also.

Bunking Off

When I’m really not in the mood for work I can bunk off.

Friday afternoons are my guilty pleasure, whenever possible I don’t book client work after 3pm so I can bunk off, listen to my podcasts or have a snooze, working from home gives me this benefit.

Eight Years In Bare Feet

I’ve spent the last eight years walking around my house in bare feet.

I’ve developed weird calluses on my toes and wearing a pair of formal shoes for any length of time is a nightmare.  You have been warned 🙂

Wrap Up – On Working From Home

The world of work has changed so much in the past 10 years.

Digital work has allowed so many of us to work from home, create our own schedules and have a much more balanced life.  Work is returning to an older village setup where people work from their living spaces rather than the grey industrial monster where we are consumed by factories and offices.

Working from home is a blessing and joy to me,  I know everyone cannot do that based upon their job choice, your thoughts on working from home in the comments.

Photo Credit: Hey Paul Studios via Compfight cc