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Hey all. Hope you won't mind me sharing an update. (long post warning)
Maybe someone will share their thoughts/perspectives on this but if not, it''ll be cathartic exercise and hopefully i won't offend anyone lol.
I'm in a very strange place that I'd guess few people find themselves in?
I earn OK money and the income is recurring and mostly passive.
Yet, I'm stuck and unfulfilled.
I'm stuck but the money that comes in gives me a good lifestyle with multiple holidays abroad per year, whatever food/entertainment/clothing I want, etc.
I used to post in here a few years ago, enjoying the interesting discourse while trying to figure out how to "next level" my business which at the time was a simple Adwords agency, generating leads for home improvement businesses.
Well, years have passed, the Adwords agency is still ticking along and I now have a second business which is Pay Per Lead selling financial leads generated via Facebook to mostly one man band clients.
Adwords biz is the bread and butter still and does very reliable monthly recurring and the FB biz does less but overall works out to a decent average per month but very erratic.
The challenge with the Adwords business has always been client acquisition. Usually once they come on board, I can retain for a long time but to get them on board, due to the nature of up front costs/previous bad experiences people have had with other providers/oversaturation, it's always a very painful process that results in a LOT of dead ends and disappointment. And to be frank, dealing with people who are far from ideal to hopefully find the diamonds in the rough...
The challenge with FB is getting the leads and maintaining quality. FB is so erratic. Esp now. It's very hard to scale in my industry and get quality leads. I have so much more demand than I can serve. Clients for this business are all over me, i get enquiries every week for people wanting to buy leads.
So essentially, the problem each business faces is the exact reverse of the other lol.
I've been at this for 10+ years at this stage and I've grown far too comfortable over the last few years.
The pandemic hasn't exactly been helpful to the mental health either unfortunately, my optimism has taken a knock.
I tend to get a bit of inspiration every so often to try new things / try and solve these problems of scale or client acquisition but after finding similar poor results to what i've seen in the past the inspiration fizzles out and I go back to the comfortable lifestyle of just collecting recurring revenue and doing the basics to keep both businesses doing ok.
I think the trouble I have is that I have created businesses that I don't enjoy "grinding" on.
I think I would have to somewhat enjoy the grind to be able to stick with it long term.
But sitting in FB ads manager and looking at stats gets boring real fast.
I don't enjoy writing copy or creating advert images (at the very least, not for the financial market that I'm in).
Same goes for pitching the same product to clients, even when they're pretty much pre sold and I know I'm likely to get a yes, going through the motions feels dull and repetitive and then the outcome is that I have another client pestering me for leads that i can't provide because I don't have the volume they want.
I think about starting other businesses but the drive isn't there, the thought of starting from scratch is daunting, even if I have the safety net of savings and recurring rev.
Another thought that occurs to me frequently is to sell the business(es) or sell a stake in the business to bring in some new blood. That would certainly shake things up a bit.
It's time to re-read TMF for sure, so I'm going start it again this week.
Thanks for reading, i know this probably sounds pretty pathetic to some of you who will be thinking, "give yourself a shake!" and I can't disagree with the sentiment, if I'm honest.
Cheers,
Maybe someone will share their thoughts/perspectives on this but if not, it''ll be cathartic exercise and hopefully i won't offend anyone lol.
I'm in a very strange place that I'd guess few people find themselves in?
I earn OK money and the income is recurring and mostly passive.
Yet, I'm stuck and unfulfilled.
I'm stuck but the money that comes in gives me a good lifestyle with multiple holidays abroad per year, whatever food/entertainment/clothing I want, etc.
I used to post in here a few years ago, enjoying the interesting discourse while trying to figure out how to "next level" my business which at the time was a simple Adwords agency, generating leads for home improvement businesses.
Well, years have passed, the Adwords agency is still ticking along and I now have a second business which is Pay Per Lead selling financial leads generated via Facebook to mostly one man band clients.
Adwords biz is the bread and butter still and does very reliable monthly recurring and the FB biz does less but overall works out to a decent average per month but very erratic.
The challenge with the Adwords business has always been client acquisition. Usually once they come on board, I can retain for a long time but to get them on board, due to the nature of up front costs/previous bad experiences people have had with other providers/oversaturation, it's always a very painful process that results in a LOT of dead ends and disappointment. And to be frank, dealing with people who are far from ideal to hopefully find the diamonds in the rough...
The challenge with FB is getting the leads and maintaining quality. FB is so erratic. Esp now. It's very hard to scale in my industry and get quality leads. I have so much more demand than I can serve. Clients for this business are all over me, i get enquiries every week for people wanting to buy leads.
So essentially, the problem each business faces is the exact reverse of the other lol.
I've been at this for 10+ years at this stage and I've grown far too comfortable over the last few years.
The pandemic hasn't exactly been helpful to the mental health either unfortunately, my optimism has taken a knock.
I tend to get a bit of inspiration every so often to try new things / try and solve these problems of scale or client acquisition but after finding similar poor results to what i've seen in the past the inspiration fizzles out and I go back to the comfortable lifestyle of just collecting recurring revenue and doing the basics to keep both businesses doing ok.
I think the trouble I have is that I have created businesses that I don't enjoy "grinding" on.
I think I would have to somewhat enjoy the grind to be able to stick with it long term.
But sitting in FB ads manager and looking at stats gets boring real fast.
I don't enjoy writing copy or creating advert images (at the very least, not for the financial market that I'm in).
Same goes for pitching the same product to clients, even when they're pretty much pre sold and I know I'm likely to get a yes, going through the motions feels dull and repetitive and then the outcome is that I have another client pestering me for leads that i can't provide because I don't have the volume they want.
I think about starting other businesses but the drive isn't there, the thought of starting from scratch is daunting, even if I have the safety net of savings and recurring rev.
Another thought that occurs to me frequently is to sell the business(es) or sell a stake in the business to bring in some new blood. That would certainly shake things up a bit.
It's time to re-read TMF for sure, so I'm going start it again this week.
Thanks for reading, i know this probably sounds pretty pathetic to some of you who will be thinking, "give yourself a shake!" and I can't disagree with the sentiment, if I'm honest.
Cheers,
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