TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

Business

Learn about content and business from a master

By

Content is on the rise in prominence at the moment, due to the interest in content marketing and inbound marketing. As always, there’s a mixture of good and bad advice available.

In addition to what you may read from marketing and content agencies, it’s well worth investing a little time in listening to creators.  In this case, it’s Leo LaPorte, founder of the multi-million dollar TWiT network of podcasts, speaking at New Media Expo 2013.

And finally, a tip of the hat to Euan Semple, who happened to mention the video as worth watching in a Facebook conversation.

Celebrating two years of business

By

Tomorrow it will be two years to the day since TheWayoftheWeb became a business as well as a blog. It’s slightly surreal to think how fast that time has gone. Despite the fact I seem to have a habit of projects coinciding with family events which should help me remember anniversaries, it was only in a conversation on Monday that I realised 24 months has passed.

In that time I’ve gone from sole trader to Limited Company, worked on a large number of diverse client projects, partnered with some other great small businesses and freelancers to grow the available resource, survived some big changes in my personal life, and learned an amazing amount about how to work, how to run a business, and most importantly, about myself.

It’s a reminder to thank a huge number of people for their continued support – whether that’s my parents for always being there, the former employer who gave me the first piece of freelance work that kicked things off, all the clients who have invested in my services, and the friends and contacts who have offered invaluable support, encouragement and advice. Naming every single one of them would probably turn this into the longest article ever written, but I really and truly value the input of everyone.

That also includes a large number of people who I have never met in the flesh, but have supported, advised or helped with a huge variety of things via Twitter, Facebook, email, Skype etc.

 

How did I get here? What did I learn?

When I initially became self-employed, I’d always thought about running my own business. I’d dabbled with my own websites in some spare time and dreamed about doing it for real, but also had a family and home to support from what had been a regular wage for large media companies.

Initially, I told myself I was doing it in the short term to pay the bills, and that I’d probably go back to working for someone else fairly soon. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid having to sign on for unemployment benefits even when I went through a long period of applying for entry level media jobs (Instead I enjoyed myself delivering washing machines, packing fruit, cleaning supermarkets etc), and so preferred to keep my skills sharp by taking the first few projects I was able to get.

And for the first few months it was very tight. Any savings vanished, some bills had to wait a while, and my earnings were negligible, but with the support of some very key people I was able to scrape by and slowly work started to come in at a higher pace.

But that didn’t mean it became easy. Every new client and new piece of work provided a new challenge, whether it was getting things done and achieving success, or just managing a growing client list. But after being interviewed and even offered some amazing full-time roles, I realised that I was turning them down for valid reasons, but also because I was becoming more and more in love with running my own business.

Since then TheWayoftheWeb has gone from bloke at dining room table on an aging laptop, to a virtual agency with a core group of regular freelance staff. The dining room table has become an office, and the aging laptop has been replaced and supplemented with monitors, printers, etc. I’ve learned which tools and software to invest in to make life more manageable, and I’ve become more fired up and determined than ever to continue to grow things in the right way in the future.

At some point I’ll delve into more detail, but seven of the main things I’ve learned:

  1. Plan and invest in the right support at the start in terms of Accounts, Legal and Project Management. The longer you leave it, the more work and expense you’ll face to fix it. Especially at tax time.
  2. Do the hardest stuff first each day and don’t put it off. It’s easy to convince yourself you’ll get around to something you hate, but running your own business means ‘the boss’ has the opportunity to ignore it indefinitely. See the first advice on the time and expense that’ll involve eventually.
  3. Use the right tools. For me, that includes Freshbooks for invoicing, and Trello, Basecamp and LiquidPlanner for project management. I also use a range of tools for SEO analysis, social media monitoring, web hosting etc. It’s worth investing the money for the right tool, and the time to learn how to use them properly.
  4. Plan a large amount of your time for managing and communicating with clients, paying bills, general business admin and working with anyone you sub-contract. You’ll never get to spend all your time just on the work itself.
  5. Also plan on investing in your office, whether remotely or at home. The 4 Hour Work Week is a nice idea, but doesn’t happen for most of us, especially early on. Things like a decent chair, desk, second monitor, etc are all worthwhile investments. As is making your office more enjoyable with pictures and plants. Don’t overlook things like Spotify for music etc when you’re at home, and decent headphones for the coffee shop/client office.
  6. Get focused – it’s easy to get caught up in social networks and email. In my case, it’s often part of my work, and so I can’t even turn it off to avoid distraction. That means becoming more and more disciplined about what you’re doing and why. It doesn’t mean you can’t tweet during the day, or comment on a picture, but invest in a timer or time management programme and let yourself have fun for 5-10 minutes as a break between work. Not a replacement for it.
  7. And finally, when you run your own business it can completely dominate your life and every waking thought. Make a conscious decision and effort to dedicate time to non-work activity, particularly if you have a family. Working for yourself doesn’t have to mean financial insecurity for ever, or for you to miss out on the rest of your life, but it will expand like a gas to fill every available minute if you let it.

Who knows what the next two years will bring. I’m still learning, facing new challenges and enjoying myself on the whole more than ever before. I’ve become used to the rollercoaster each day between elation and despair which I think everyone experiences, even when things are going smoothly!

Hopefully I’ll be running a bigger business, which enables more people to build their own careers in the location and way they want, whilst working with me to provide solutions in the way clients need. But even if I decide that I need a change, or I fall in love with a particular company and become employed again, I’ll always be proud to know I made it this far.

Due to work, any proper celebrations involving beer will have to wait till the weekend. But that’s fine, because I really do enjoy what I do, even the achievement of completing the bits I hate like tax returns. And to paraphrase Seth Godin, why do a job that you hate so much you spend all your time looking to escape it?

P.S. I know that I said I wouldn’t name people, I really do have to thank Tim for his amazing help during some difficult times, and Oscar for always being the ultimate in inspiration.

How does your business handle ‘off-menu’ requests?

By

To celebrate a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, I took my son and ex-girlfriend on a trip down to Woburn Safari Park on Sunday, and on the way back we decided to eat at our nearest OK Diner.

It’s a pretty regular thing for my son and I. He’d quite happily live on hot dogs every day, I’m a fan of burgers (Particularly their bacon and guacamole burger), and he seems to have inherited my love of 50’s American style and music. Plus, the kids menu comes with crayons and pictures to colour in, which gives the two of us something to do!

Bear crossing at Woburn Safari Park
One reason why we spent so long at the Safari Park. It appears bears assume right-of-way!

 

But I left feeling a bit disappointed in myself. You see, as part of the kids meal, you get the choice of vanilla, strawberry or chocolate ice cream, but when my son first got offered a choice of flavours, he picked mint.

And until now, the waiting staff have happily accommodated him, which has made it feel a bit more special. This time though, the waitress enforced the menu options, so he settled on chocolate instead.

Part of me says that’s fine – it’s a clear menu option after all. But part of me wondered why I just accepted it – I could have either asked for a favour or even offered a pound or two to see if they’d have upgraded the ice cream. It’s not the English way to go ‘off-menu’, but it would have kept the special feeling that I and my four-year-old had after getting a ‘special’ ice cream.

I’m sure we’ll be eating there again soon – great milkshakes and burgers are a necessity in life – but it started me wondering whether my son will now automatically go for a menu choice or stick to his guns next time, and how all sorts of businesses react to special requests.

 

How does your business handle ‘off-menu’ requests?

Every business involves a lot of consideration for what can be offered, what is profitable enough, and how that can be presented in the marketplace. Often it’s more about ruling out possibilities to maintain some focus and direction, and to be able to market a clear message.

But in every case there will always be customers who want to tweak what you do. Maybe they want a different colour or size, or maybe they want an additional service bundled into your offering. And as time goes by, clients may have a wider range of needs that they’d like to come from one provider, or that they hadn’t considered previously.

Strange things on the menu here

Image by Dean on Flickr (CC License)

So how do you deal with them?

I don’t believe any business can try and please all the people, all the time. Some requests are going to be completely uneconomical to fulfill.

But I think you have a couple of choices.

  • Where it incurs little or no downside, accommodate the request. An off-menu scoop of ice cream might eat very slightly into the profit margin on a particular meal, but the cost would be marginal, particularly compared to the lifetime value of 2-3 people regularly buying full meals.
  • Where it incurs a prohibitive downside, explain the reasons for denying the request, and if possible recommend alternative solutions. That may mean exposing some of the challenges you face as a business, and even suggesting someone goes to a competitor company, but in the long run you’ll find that good, honest reasons and recommendations would gain you more than just saying no.

There are several companies who have achieved oft-quoted success with that customer service approach, such as Zappos, who train their reps to recommend competitor websites if they don’t have what a customer wants. And 10 years after founding in 1999, it was acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion. CEO Tony Hsieh published a book about company culture and process called ‘Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose‘.

And there are plenty of restaurants and bars around the world which have off-menu choices known to a select few (until they become widely-shared on the internet).

Even McDonalds and other fast food outlets have ‘off-menu’ choices, although I can’t vouch for them being available in the UK. Or edible.

But the key isn’t having special items, or allowing special requests. The key is empowering the people who run your business at every level to be able to handle those decisions effectively.

  • Empower every person in your business to be able to handle any off-menu request. Your customers benefit from being special. Your employees and colleagues benefit from being trusted to make those decisions. And your business benefits massively in the age of digital recommendations and the amplified word-of-mouth.

Global culture is changing dramatically, and everyone is becoming more accustomed to being able to customise any purchase to be exactly what they desire. If you’re not looking at ways to incorporate that customer need into your business, you risk losing them to someone which will.

Key trends for 2012: Digital Disruption gets Physical

By

It’s the trend and prediction season, and there’s one overarching theme which ties together the main three technology trends I believe will break into the mainstream in 2012. Over the past decade we’ve seen a huge amount of disruption triggered by increased internet access – both in terms of speed and availability. The access to information and entertainment has had a massive effect on media and entertainment industries, whether through legitimate ways to access content or piracy. And we’ve also seen new tools and changes in collaboration, business practices, marketing, freelancing, crowdsourcing and much more.

But the majority of these changes have all been concerned with the fact you can transmit information and content effortlessly around the world. The key change for 2012 is that three major trends and breakthroughs will have a far bigger impact than ever before on the physical world. All three have been discussed and reported in technology circles for months, years, and in one case, decades, but all of them are reaching that tipping point where ‘normal’ non-geeks are interested and getting to the stage where they will start to invest with their cash.

Trends for 2012 #1: 3D Printing:

Having previously predicted that 2012 will be the year of 3D printing, I have to lead with it. Since writing that post in August (which was one of my most popular), the profile and interest in 3D Printing has only risen. We’re still at the stage where people can find new ways to utilise it every week, whether that’s criminals using it to produce credit card skimmers, the highly debatable use of creating gun parts, or the potentially life enhancing application of 3D printing to create new bones. One of the reasons I love 3D printing so much is that it’s still at the stage where it’s advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic, but sadly I suspect that era will be over soon, and we’ll see more companies probably publicly demonstrating how they’ve been using it in-house for rapid prototyping etc.

  • In addition to the BBC link above, it’s being featured by the likes of The Economist, highlighting celebrity 3D printer Jay Leno. We’re already entering the cool celebrity endorsement stage.
  • DIY 3D Printers are coming down in price – e.g. $500. OK, so we’re still at the stage where you need to assemble your own kit, but when the existing companies build enough demand and scale, or when you get someone like Samsung or Toshiba in the market, the ability to source parts in massive bulk and package them in something that’s consumer friendly will rapidly change. How long before a bright pink or blue 3D printer covered in cartoon characters is on the shelves of Toys R Us for example?
  • Having seen Makerbot gain funding and more media attention, now Shapeways has raised $5.1 million for the alternative approach of remotely producing whatever designs are sent to them.
  • The tech, the stories and applications are a dream for anyone in marketing – if any 3D Printing company wants to chat to me about the possibilities, I’d definitely be interested. I can’t think of many technologies that have so many simple yet magical ways to entice consumers
  • And there are a number of startups now building their businesses on the platform of 3D printing, for instance, building personalised robot figurines to order, which leads me nicely onto the second trend…

 

Trends for 2012 #2: Robots in the workplace and your home:

Robots have been around for a long time in both science fiction, and in the workplace. As ideas and mechanical automatons, they’ve been around for hundreds of years, and in an industrial setting, they began work in the 1960s. More recently, their military use has skyrocketed – for a detailed look I highly recommend Wired for War by PW Singer, and their use in warehousing and distribution has been documented in various places. So why am I tipping something so old and obvious as a trend for 2012?

  • For one thing – use in the home, and the drop in prices. A basic Roomba robot vacuum cleaner costs £239.99 on Amazon, comparitive to a number of Dysons, for example. Sadly robot lawnmowers are still equivalent to the highest end of the human directed version, but I’d put money on that changing in the near future. And when that happens and you send one out, all your neighbours will suddenly get a prime view of it.
  • And the other is the increased sophistication of their role in the workplace. Korea is trialling robot prison guards, Toyota has unveiled 4 robot health assistants due on the market around 2013, and they’ve already got competition from the Riba healthcare robot due to 2015, amongst others. President Obama has already announced the U.S will fund the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, which is part of the many efforts to enable robots to interact with humans in their work, rather than simply isolated on a production line doing a very simple task.
  • Again, cost is an issue with a current personal robot costing $400,00. A bit much for personal use, but costs will decrease rapidly – in 1973 the first personal computer cost around $200,000. And in the workplace, more specific requirements and designs lower the cost to the point where investing is a case of direct comparison with a human equivalent. Whether or not you support or use immigration or cheap labour for repetitive tasks, there are still costs involved and potential problems which robots could answer. And given we’re on the cusp of self-replicating robots and machines, 2012 probably won’t see a personal robot butler in every home, but will see more businesses investing in them, and more widespread use of the single-task robot in your personal life.
  • And one element which might help that spread and help the adjustment is the rise of home working and telecommuting, as there has been work and research which leads to the use of robot ‘stand-ins’ for workers away from the office for meetings etc (The same thing still continues in virtual worlds, despite the perception of business ‘failure’ in places such as Second Life – and the use of more traditionally framed virtual collaboration tools could well lead to a resurgence in the future, particularly with more senior executives of an age where virtual worlds in video games are second nature)

 

Trends for 2012 #3: ‘The Internet of Things’

Possibly the clunkiest name for any trend, but fairly self-explanatory when you realise this refers to connected devices. Again, this isn’t a radically new idea, and comes accompanied with references to the internet fridges we all failed to rush out and buy. But that was before the iPad started to replace a recipe book on the kitchen counter, next to the internet-connected radio and the smart phone.

And the key development is that the infrastructure is now available in ever-growing areas – ever-faster broadband, wifi, power lines etc.

  • Consider that the EU has already seen fit to sign a framework for privacy for RFID applications, which power the connectivity.
  • Businesses are already there – remember the warehouse robots from our last trend? RFID. Want to be able to connect all your vehicle assets? RFID. Want to be able to track all your inventory, no matter where it is in the supply chain, down to a single box? RFID.
  • Increasingly we’re controlling more of our lives from a small group of devices – smartphone, tablet, laptop, Kinect etc.
  • There are already a huge number of applications and businesses utilising existing technology, such as Arduino, to allow your plants to message you when they need more water, or your doorbell to text you when someone rings it.
  • And remember the Internet Fridge back in 1999? Well, it’s back and wifi enabled. And given that the likes of Tesco have started using augmented reality to allow you to snap a picture of your groceries on the wall of the underground station while you are waiting to come home, suddenly being able to access what’s in your fridge and what you need to buy when you’re out and about suddenly doesn’t seem quite so daft…
  • If that all seems a bit too far – consider the amount of self-diagnosis being utilised in cars. And imagine the time and frustration saving when your rubbish washing machine is internet connected? This isn’t about using your tumbledryer to surf the web – it’s about saving time and effort when it breaks by contacting the engineers directly to let them order a part and come and fix it, rather than trying to arrange an appointment via a call centre for someone to come and look at it, go away again, and then come back with the right bit to fix it.

 

The implications of 2012’s Physical Disruption

The one outside element which might have an effect on the timescales is the perception of the global economy. I don’t think that will slow 3D printing particularly, as tough economic times tend to see a rise in DIY and self-repair, plus investments in items which are very much about longterm quality and value.

It may be harder for robots to be accepted into the family – they inherently seem more frivolous, even with the argument that the time-saving means more productive work can be done to show a decent return. In the workplace the cost savings are more immediately apparent and the future looks less accessible for anyone in an unskilled manual labour role. Much as the longterm prospects for call centres might start to decline this year, which I don’t think anyone except employees will mourn (Sorry for the few good call centre people I’ve dealt with).

Put simply, 2012 is the tipping point, I believe, for small business of crafted products. I remember watching a presentation video, which I believe was JP Rangaswami (Annoyingly absent in every history and bookmarking tool I use, so I’ll continue to try to locate it), in which he talked about a return to a pre-Industrial Revolution business world, and 2012 seems to be the point where that becomes an increasing reality. Big brands will continue to exist, but already they’re moving to a world in which they retain their size by the interests they own and the backroom elements they can provide more than leading the storefronts and businesses with their brands.

That has positives – at the point were you can save money by printing your own products rather than paying to import them from outsourced manufacturer in Asia. Optimistically, saving on the more menial healthcare tasks may allow for more training and specialisation in more complexity, assuming the NHS isn’t completely destroyed. And a connected house should mean more time to be productive or relaxed.

But it also has scary implications for employment – the easy reassurance is that when the economy improves, everyone will be back in work and everything will be OK. But the effect of digital disruption has been that it creates money, and employment, but in sheer numbers the workforce will always be much smaller than what was replaced, as we increasingly use algorithms instead of humans. Extend that further out into unskilled and semi-skilled professions and we need to rapidly reconsider the education system and the industries which the UK and the world will be pursuing in the future, and how that maps out against the world’s population.

So that’s something to look forward to next year.

Self-employment – the first anniversary

By

It’s strange to think that it’s exactly a year since I became self-employed, considering that it’s almost hard to remember what it was like working for a full-time employer. Luckily the fact that it coincided with my father’s birthday is a handy reminder that 365 days ago I started working on my dining room table with an old laptop running Ubuntu, a notepad, and the idea that if I could survive for a year on my own I’d consider it a massive success.

And yet here I am at the same table, albeit on a much newer laptop.

Lessons from self-employment:

One of the best things about working for myself has been the massive learning curve which shows no sign of slowing down. Suddenly I became responsible for invoicing, accounts, new business, and everything else, rather than ‘just’ marketing or writing articles, and that definitely took a while to get to grips with. I’ve still got a way to go, but I’ve managed to get comfortable with invoices and tax forms, with a combination of asking advice and finding some decent tools to help manage things.

It’s also been a massive confidence boost to not only be able to get a business going by myself, but to actually survive and reach the stage where my earnings are slightly more than I was able to get in full-time employment. My financial situation, a young family and the start of the recession were all reasons not to go it alone, and I don’t have much disposable income even now, but I’ve actually been able to start reducing some debts which has been great, despite the need to buy a new car midway through the year. And it’s been amazing to not only attract some clients from contacts I’ve known over the years, but also gain new business through new referrals and sources – the fact that it’s all purely coming from my own efforts and from people who respect my abilities enough to recommend me is incredibly empowering, and it makes me more determined than ever to do the very best job I can for every single client.

And it’s been a strange experience working in a variety of industry verticals, from food and catering to mobile applications and software, with all sorts in between. My work combines all areas of content strategy and digital marketing, and my clients not only span a variety of industries, but also a range of knowledge and existing ability, so there hasn’t been a day that hasn’t had something different to offer. And having recently started doing more formal training and tutoring both under my own banner and for a respected training organisation has been a great experience and has helped me evaluate my own knowledge and particularly my communication skills in person.

But probably the biggest lesson has been in thinking about the future. I recently admitted to a couple of people that if everything stayed exactly the same for the next 40 years, I’d be pretty happy with my life – I’m getting to spend time with my son, work with cool clients, and spend some time on my own projects. But I’ve also been thinking about expansion and agency models, and wondering what would make the most sense. What I’ve realised is that I know a number of people who are intelligent and talented, and claim to be fed-up in their current roles – so maybe there’s a way I can work with them and help them to break free and pursue their dreams in a virtual agency capacity? It’s something I’ve definitely going to be investigating in the near future.

The massive list of people to thank:

I can’t even begin to list all the people who have helped and supported me, whether it’s been my family, including those who stood to risk the most if I couldn’t pay the mortgage or put food on the table, or friends and colleagues who have offered referrals and client leads. Then there is a list of great clients, including those I’ve worked with directly, and those who I’ve helped whilst sub-contracting for other organisations.

There’s a huge number of people who have shared tips and advice, including creative coaches, business people, accountants, marketing experts, advertising people, writers, etc. And an equally huge number who have inspired me in some way, whether it’s by following their own adventures, or by their approach to life.

It’s pretty much guaranteed that a list of names would leave so many people unaccounted for, so basically if we’ve spoken, emailed, tweeted, exchanged messages via Facebook, or you’ve linked to me or shared one of my articles, and you think you might be on the list – you are!

The future:

One of the most interesting things about becoming self-employed is that I’ve experienced the frustration of having ideas buried within large organisations, or letting them gather dust because I didn’t have the confidence to go off and do them myself.

That’s changed forever, in a process which started 5 or 6 years ago when I first registered on Blogger and began writing under a pseudonym. That eventually became this site after a couple of false starts, and the transition to WordPress (which I again timed to be memorable – timing it with my son’s birthday).

At the same time, alongside my client work, I’ve had time to start a small group of sites (OnlineRaceDriver, FPSPrestige, ResCogs) which are growing steadily and gaining a reasonable audience thanks to help from a great group of contributors – Cheers to Kalps, Tom, Thomas, Don, etc. And also thanks to the PR and Marketing people from various game developers and associated companies who have started to support us with kit to review, competitions to run etc.

And I’ve been able to start a small experiment in website design and development which is still taking shape in many ways, but has already delivered some clients and is starting to deliver more, thanks to the input of Jonathan and two Matt’s.

I think I’ve now finally started to find the balance between feeling unable to pursue ideas, and trying to launch all of them at once, and the next year should see a more focused expansion of what works, and some changes to what doesn’t. And hopefully the ideas I don’t feel able to pursue can be shared with the right people and help them find more success.

So thanks, cheers, and I can’t imagine what will happen over the next 12 months, but I do know I’m looking forward to every single day…

 

Dan

Start growing your business today Contact Us

Recent Comments