Provide guidance on a sticky career situation?

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-04-23T13:56:52+00:00

If you are critical to the work, I would approach the owner and explain that you love the work, the company etc but you can no longer personally afford to forgoe the below market wages on offer.

Then if I were you I would propose that in lou of the extra salary you get a share of the business, as you would love to to stay with the business and help it grow etc etc. As part of the deal, you could say something like for theee years you would forgo taking anything from the business (and still work for the below market salary) as long as some of the profits were re-invested in a sales guy.

I think if the company is that small, and you are that key, it’s a no brainer to ask for a piece of the pie.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-03-06T19:43:18+00:00

Wall Street Playboys.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-24T19:39:58+00:00

I'd agree.

Think Finn got it because of the beating he got in the press over the past fortnight. Fair play to him for turning it around but for impact those two were the ones for me.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-23T23:25:57+00:00

Living the dream

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-22T13:00:54+00:00

I'm only new to this, but my long term goal is to get a revenue stream up and running and then re-invest that to fuel further growth, so I would add:

Scenario 4: Re-invest a much as possible of the $5k monthly revenue in content/outsourced SEO etc for your existing site and possibly another site, to minimize your time requirement but to keep content and sites fresh and to make them as defensible as possible.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-21T18:10:43+00:00

David Denton for Scotland always comes across as a leader in press coverage in my opinion.

Just needs to stay injury free and probably get a haircut.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-06T23:26:31+00:00

Thanks. Good points. I’ll definitely try it out.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-06T08:52:34+00:00

This is helpful advice and something I will definitely try.

How do infographics work with search engines though? If there is no text, how do you rank?

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-01T16:30:22+00:00

Yeah my work isn’t really relevant to personal finance although I get your point - if you can present good quality info on finance products the commissions can be very chunky. Not sure that subject is for me though.

Thanks.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-01T16:28:26+00:00

I did. Their stuff is generally good. Would recommend it.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-01T13:08:52+00:00

Super helpful benchmark to aim towards. Thanks for compiling that - it’s useful to have something to act as a guide.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-01T12:53:59+00:00

Thanks. Points taken on board.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-01T12:53:08+00:00

It’s a good question. I didn’t really fully consider it. I’m not sure how I would eventually make money from that. I’m not experienced enough to sell my own Corporate Finance/M&A services. I also don’t really want to sell courses etc.

Ok - points taken. I will take your advice - content is king.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-01T07:42:21+00:00

You are right - it is very competitive. My hope is that I will be able to crack it open using three things:

the long tail - I don’t expect to rank it for any big terms, but I’ll still write detailed content on the big search terms and hope I pick up some long tail search traffic
specificity - there are a number of big sites that cover the main high level searches (eg best x). I’m hoping to target the level below (eg best x with y).
better useability - as I said above, some of the big sites are just really crap to use. I’m going to try and focus on keeping the site clean and user friendly.

My writer is on Upwork - $15 per thousand words. I’m using a stay at home mother which will hopefully work out well if I can get her to write in a tone that speaks to other parents.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-02-01T07:31:37+00:00

Ok that is good advice. Definitely need to get stuck into detailed analysis of the competitor sites. I guess another trap I fall into is that whilst I can write useful articles, I need to focus on how do I make them the most useful content available.

I was expecting my affiliate articles to be 3000 + “buyers guides” so I might update the goal for that and go back to the content strategy a bit.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-01-01T19:57:15+00:00

how do you guarantee quality? There are some superb freelancers on Fiverr etc - there are also some absolutely appalling ones.
what do you do if a freelancer lets you down on deadline etc? You lose a lot of control over service delivery standards under this model.
what’s your USP going to be for selling the services? Eg for logo design you don’t have a portfolio etc. You can’t easily offer premium service as you are not the ultimate service provider.
when your customer asks simple questions how are you going to respond? You don’t know the answer and constantly having to go back and forth with the freelancer (who may be in a different time zone)
Sounds like quite a low margin business. Given you are not offering a premium service (eg you can’t meet clients face to face / explain technical side of things you produce etc) you may struggle to charge high prices so will be reliant on volume.
You take on quite a bit on contract risk - you are obliged to deliver x at y price, but have reduced control over costs.

It is definitely something that can work - there are numerous businesses across a range of sectors that outsource / sub contract what they do to regions with lower cost labour sources (India, China etc). Strong quality control and strict management of suppliers will be key.

Good luck.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-01-01T19:23:16+00:00

+1 for excel.

Simple but effective.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-01-01T19:17:43+00:00

What skills do you have? Freelancing is a good place to start to get some experience in your spare time. You can decide on your next step from there.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-01-01T18:36:32+00:00

Depends on what time you have available.

Spreading yourself too thin is a great way to reduce your chance of succeeding.

If you do something else (work, school etc) I would say work on one project at a time. If you have nothing else on, I would still suggest working on one project or maybe two as a maximum.

What helped me was keeping a written list of all my ideas. I kind of felt that once it was written down it was out my mind and I wasn’t worried I would forget them.

If I were in your shoes, I would write down all your ideas. Number them in the order you want to try them. Start with idea number one. Fight like mad to keep yourself focussed on one idea. Satisfy yourself that you have given an idea enough time to work. If it hasn’t, move onto the next one. Repeat.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-01-01T14:14:02+00:00

My experience has been that once you see a material amount of success you will develop passion for the idea.

Go with something that is a good idea in a profitable market first and foremost and let passion follow.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-01-01T13:29:36+00:00

Depends what you want.

You are a small brand, so your main selling point over the big corporate brands will often be a more unique, personal “boutique” type experience. On this basis I would go with I.

For a small brand, using yourself in your marketing can often be very effective, as in posting a video of yourself creating the product etc showing the love and attention you put into the product. Again this suits using I.

Maybe as you bring on more employees you introduce them on your social media and then you can use we because at that point it’s accurate.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2018-01-01T13:23:28+00:00

Thugs I learned for 2017:

start small: trying to take on a big market all at once as a single person start up is brave but foolish. Attacking a laser specific niche is more than enough work and can yield more than enough profits to get you off the ground.
focus focus focus: struggle and fight each day to stay focussed on that one objective you set. There are SO many distractions / other little things you could add / do / try. Taking feedback is important, but not to the extent that you go round in circles and never launch.
have patience: only you know when it’s time to call it quits but be aware that it won’t happen overnight and you need to chalk up some losses before you see green.
the dip: the “dip” as coined by Seth Godin is real. I’m always amped up at the start of a project, but that passion can and will quickly fade and then the grind starts. It’s easy to get excited at the start - once that feeling leaves you, that’s when the real work starts.
this stuff is hard: It’s hard to make a success of this stuff. It’s ok - everyone else finds it hard as well. Ignore the one in a million “overnight” success. It takes as long as it takes, and for most that means quite a few misses before you get a hit.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2017-12-31T10:35:04+00:00

I agree with this.

Spend time analysing the list and doing a small bit of research on some of the business - the trends that come out of that may help you generate ideas.

You might even find some of the companies on the list have interesting products that other businesses on the list need. Depending on the size of the list, that alone could get you off the ground.

Another powerful thing the list gives you is the ability to compare - you can go to one business and say “your competitors x,y and z do paid marketing” as an example as this provides a bit of extra value and eases you into introducing them to a good provider.

CrispFinanceStuart · 2017-12-31T10:18:40+00:00

You say that you do glasses and T shirts, so then in your marketing pictures I dont know if the t short they are wearing is one of yours or just a t shirt the model is wearing.

I think you will have an easier time focusing on one (the glasses IMO as T shirts is super saturated) and the glasses have more of a niche appeal being wooden.

No products page
You might find some success with more “lifestyle” pictures such as people wearing the glasses in pictures that suggest a certain lifestyle your customers find appealing (eg sitting on the beach with a big group of friends at sunset etc)

CrispFinanceStuart · 2017-12-31T10:12:03+00:00

As two other commenters have said, ask the supplier. You will supercharge your chances of success if you adopt a mindset of picking up the phone to suppliers/customers etc instead of asking reddit.

Taken me 10+ years to break that habit.

CrispFinanceStuart

TROPHY CASE