Hi everyone, my name is Tony and I'm from Canada.
I just finished reading TMF and it is absolutely the best business book I have ever read (and I have read a lot).
Some background (business wise).
Started off in the early 90's on BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems for those too young to know) and wanted to start a business. Was turned on to Dan Kennedy by an ad that had Jeff Paul (Make money in underwear book) and I tried to use the same small printed book with big backend in a couple of non money-making niches and made some sales. I had placed classified ads in some industry mags and there was obviously some lag time from when you place the ad.
I then moved online and started a few websites going back to 96-97. Learned how to do everything myself including coding etc. At the same time I embarked on a new career in B2B sales.
Worked on business at night and sold B2B during the day but wasn't getting much traction online although hit 6 figures in commission in my day job.
By 2001 after about 5 years in B2B and 9/11 hit, my income took a big hit and I decided to focus more online. I ended up building an email list of over 14,000 and sold 2-3 ebooks from $19.95 to $67 in a different niche.
However, I was burning the candle at both ends and started to burn out at B2B as I was growing commissions again and didn't feel the time I put in online was worth continuing from an ROI perspective vs B2B.
I decided to sell the online sites and focus on B2B commission sales (my day job) which ended up in me hitting a much higher level in commission, however I didn't own anything (very large corporation and I was a cog although a very important one).
The company I worked for was starting to turn to ^*&^$ and they resented the money I made and tried to control me.
I decided to leave and went into business in the same industry. We hit significant revenue in our first full year and have grown at a good clip in sales after 3 years. It is also a hyper competitive industry with more than 50 competitors in my market.
The business I am in has magnitude and can definitely scale. We have good margin from each sale and 80% of our business is recurring.
The problem with scaling is it's extremely difficult to find quality employees who think like entrepreneurs. Most are full of (*&^*(^& and the most anyone made with us was $50k a year and they should easily make $100k. And I've also come to the realization that managing employees really sucks.
We deal with a small number of clients, most in the $100M-$500M revenue. I generate the majority of business by good old fashioned balls to the wall cold calling. And although we have an office, it is NOT required in our industry and for the most part, we work locally but remotely.
Our industry used to have exceptional margins (and we still have great margin) but it has become commoditized somewhat. There used to be a time that you could start a business in our industry and grow it to $50-100M but the most I've seen anyone grow to is around $20M after 6-8 years.
I would like to grow this business to 8 figures but realize I need to do some attraction based marketing (ie LinkedIn PPC), possibly some direct mail etc OR spend more serious time on the phones. Having said that, almost no company in our industry is doing anything other than cold calling, appointments and possibly a little bit of advertising. I am also a big fan of Grant Cardone as he tells it like it is.
My dilemma is that I want a business with zero employees and scalable systems that grow revenue month to month BUT i do not want to do that at the expense of handicapping my current business which is doing quite well. Unfortunately I can't see of any way to do that in my current business without some serious employee headaches and wasted dollars on employees that may not work out.
I just finished reading TMF and it is absolutely the best business book I have ever read (and I have read a lot).
Some background (business wise).
Started off in the early 90's on BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems for those too young to know) and wanted to start a business. Was turned on to Dan Kennedy by an ad that had Jeff Paul (Make money in underwear book) and I tried to use the same small printed book with big backend in a couple of non money-making niches and made some sales. I had placed classified ads in some industry mags and there was obviously some lag time from when you place the ad.
I then moved online and started a few websites going back to 96-97. Learned how to do everything myself including coding etc. At the same time I embarked on a new career in B2B sales.
Worked on business at night and sold B2B during the day but wasn't getting much traction online although hit 6 figures in commission in my day job.
By 2001 after about 5 years in B2B and 9/11 hit, my income took a big hit and I decided to focus more online. I ended up building an email list of over 14,000 and sold 2-3 ebooks from $19.95 to $67 in a different niche.
However, I was burning the candle at both ends and started to burn out at B2B as I was growing commissions again and didn't feel the time I put in online was worth continuing from an ROI perspective vs B2B.
I decided to sell the online sites and focus on B2B commission sales (my day job) which ended up in me hitting a much higher level in commission, however I didn't own anything (very large corporation and I was a cog although a very important one).
The company I worked for was starting to turn to ^*&^$ and they resented the money I made and tried to control me.
I decided to leave and went into business in the same industry. We hit significant revenue in our first full year and have grown at a good clip in sales after 3 years. It is also a hyper competitive industry with more than 50 competitors in my market.
The business I am in has magnitude and can definitely scale. We have good margin from each sale and 80% of our business is recurring.
The problem with scaling is it's extremely difficult to find quality employees who think like entrepreneurs. Most are full of (*&^*(^& and the most anyone made with us was $50k a year and they should easily make $100k. And I've also come to the realization that managing employees really sucks.
We deal with a small number of clients, most in the $100M-$500M revenue. I generate the majority of business by good old fashioned balls to the wall cold calling. And although we have an office, it is NOT required in our industry and for the most part, we work locally but remotely.
Our industry used to have exceptional margins (and we still have great margin) but it has become commoditized somewhat. There used to be a time that you could start a business in our industry and grow it to $50-100M but the most I've seen anyone grow to is around $20M after 6-8 years.
I would like to grow this business to 8 figures but realize I need to do some attraction based marketing (ie LinkedIn PPC), possibly some direct mail etc OR spend more serious time on the phones. Having said that, almost no company in our industry is doing anything other than cold calling, appointments and possibly a little bit of advertising. I am also a big fan of Grant Cardone as he tells it like it is.
My dilemma is that I want a business with zero employees and scalable systems that grow revenue month to month BUT i do not want to do that at the expense of handicapping my current business which is doing quite well. Unfortunately I can't see of any way to do that in my current business without some serious employee headaches and wasted dollars on employees that may not work out.
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