I quit my job and now working for myself. Struggling, but I believe that's part of it. Tips and tricks on how to improve my business?

[Frederik O. Pete]

I'm 26 now, I worked as a salesperson, casino dealer, loan administration specialist, key account manager, customer support and various administration postions like sales coordinator, operations coordinator etc...

My last boss handed me TFM to me, hoping I would find some ways to improve his business. I quit just a few weeks later. I wonder if he forgot what the book was about.

I wrote a cookbook with 100 vegetarian, easily veganizeable recipes. The way I am different is that all recipes are made with basic ingredients (no exotic, weird branded products), basic kitchen equipment (no mixer, blenders, steamers and crazy gadgets) and no clutter - My mom showed me a cookbook with 100 pages of text before the recipes... My book has 10 pages before the core content begin, and the 10 intro pages are actually useful.

Right now, I have the book for sale on Amazon in paperback & hardcover formats, and as a PDF on my website.
I am fiddling with google ads (not easy) to see if I can push my PDF there.
I am working on putting all 100 recipes on my website and make them all available with a subscription, 1euro per month or smth.
From there I can offer different + subs, like pay 5eur/month and get some meal plans, extra articles etc. etc.

My routine is like this: I wake up, hit the gym, home to cook, eat and shower, and then I work pretty much till I sleep.
I am currently living off my savings - If I don't sell anything, I have to get a job or do some online work to pay my rent.

I want to ask you for some feedback on my idea, my business and ways to improve it and start actually.
Where should I put my focus?
What am I not seeing?
Constructive feedback is what I need.

I have a long todo list, I am working through it every day, trying to prioritize the things I need done so they make sense.
But it's my first time pushing through on a project like this.

I am genuinely scared I won't sell anything and get a job again - That's my biggest fear.
But I try to turn it into motivation, which seems to work. I get shit done, I'm very productive, but being productive doing the wrong things doesn't really matter.
So if any of you have some good pointers or ideas to how I can sell some - I'd love to hear it.

My brand is called YouTheChef.
@youthechefapp on instagram - Growing slowly but surely. I will order a new phone with a proper camera, lights and tripod for filming video content soon.
www.youthechef.com is my website.

I hope it's OK I posted the links, it's not to promote it, but so you can see what I'm up to and maybe tell "Hey, fix this" or "Hey, focus on this" or something.

Alright, it's getting late. Another day well spent working, atleast trying, to work for myself, building a money machine.
I believe it is possible. The alternative of getting a job again... No, no, F no.

Best,
Frederik Petersen

 

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[Frederik O. Pete]

I did finish TMF and currently reading Unscripted .

 

[REV5028]

Other than put your cookbook on Amazon and fiddling with advertising, what have you done? What have you done to promote it? Are you engaging in vegetarian/vegan communities near you, on social media, etc.? What exactly do you mean when you say you're being productive and getting work done?

 

[Frederik O. Pete]

Other than put your cookbook on Amazon and fiddling with advertising, what have you done? What have you done to promote it? Are you engaging in vegetarian/vegan communities near you, on social media, etc.? What exactly do you mean when you say you're being productive and getting work done?

Writing the book
Editing the book
Setting up the website
Making content for the socials - IG & Facebook
Learning how to use Canva
Making Meta Ads work
Writing Articles for the website
And learning how to do the above properly

Engaging with social media groups I have not done actually. I made my first post in a vegan group yesterday, it was accepted by the admins. I will definitely do that to get some feedback and share it some more!

And ofcourse I talked and chatted with friends about it, posted it on my personal socials. I gave my closest family a copy and a copy to a guy from a restaurant down the street.

People light up when I talk about it, I generally get good feedback and genuine interest - but not really sales.

I work on the concept that it is possible to sell a product in a crowded market, if the product is better - and I believe the simplicity and familiarity of my book puts it ahead.

By getting work done I mean I am posting every day and going on with my todolist / roadmap. It's not easy being "my own boss", I was scared I would just sit on my a$$ all day after I quit my job, but that's not the case.

 

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[REV5028]

Writing the book
Editing the book
Setting up the website
Making content for the socials - IG & Facebook
Learning how to use Canva
Making Meta Ads work
Writing Articles for the website
And learning how to do the above properly

Engaging with social media groups I have not done actually. I made my first post in a vegan group yesterday, it was accepted by the admins. I will definitely do that to get some feedback and share it some more!

And ofcourse I talked and chatted with friends about it, posted it on my personal socials. I gave my closest family a copy and a copy to a guy from a restaurant down the street.

People light up when I talk about it, I generally get good feedback and genuine interest - but not really sales.

I work on the concept that it is possible to sell a product in a crowded market, if the product is better - and I believe the simplicity and familiarity of my book puts it ahead.

By getting work done I mean I am posting every day and going on with my todolist / roadmap. It's not easy being "my own boss", I was scared I would just sit on my a$$ all day after I quit my job, but that's not the case.

Do you think you could host your own event around the cookbook? Perhaps ask that local restaurant owner if you could use his space/kitchen to host a cooking class/demo? Or do you have a local community commercial kitchen you could use?

To me, it sounds like you're having trouble distinguishing yourself from what already exists. You've been telling people that your book makes things more simple, but you need to actually show them and quantify that so they really see the value you're bringing.

 

[ygtrhos]

Is the cookbook your only product?

Sorry, TLDR.

 

[Frederik O. Pete]

Do you think you could host your own event around the cookbook? Perhaps ask that local restaurant owner if you could use his space/kitchen to host a cooking class/demo? Or do you have a local community commercial kitchen you could use?

To me, it sounds like you're having trouble distinguishing yourself from what already exists. You've been telling people that your book makes things more simple, but you need to actually show them and quantify that so they really see the value you're bringing.

I live in Spain... So the English speaking audience here is a bit different.

However, once I receive my new phone with a proper camera, tripod etc. I'm gonna host some online cookalongs, showcasing a recipe and the book. I'll be filming this short food reels for IG, FB, YT and TT.

Is the cookbook your only product?

Sorry, TLDR.

Yes, available as a paperback and hardcover on amazon, and as a PDF on my website.
My IG and FB posts some basic content, like ingredient spotlights, recipe of the week and such.
My website has some free recipes and an article about how to lose weight, which through I do some affiliate marketing.
A 10 Free recipes PDF is also available on my website.

 

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[Gsuz]

Kudos for taking action! Some things I noticed:
1. Two of the three categories in Recipes aren't working/empty

2. Inconsistent pricing: $24.95 paperback / 34.95 hardcover / 9,95 kindle on Amazon, heavily discounted from $17 to $6 on your site. The price on Amazon is higher than most books by established creators in the space, the price on the site screams "lack of confidence in the quality" and at a price of $6 per book, you have to sell A LOT of books to make a liveable income, so I'd unify the prices for the PDF and the Kindle version and make the printed ones more affordable

3. Good idea re: creating video content. I'd focus on creating mouthwatering, shareable videos on all platforms. I feel like in a space that is this crowded, it's mostly about the HOW and not so much about the WHAT. At this point, there are more cooking blogs than people actually cooking. I would also set up some kind of flow - Example from a well-known German vegan food blog:
Post with video and multiple slides - Isa&Julia | Vegan Comfort Food on Instagram: "Wusstet ihr, dass wenn ihr nur drei Zutaten miteinander vermengt, in die Pfanne schwuppt, an die Magie von veganem Käse glaubt, dann mit höchster Konzentration und Mut eine ganze Pfanne flippt und noch ein bisschen wartet … auf einmal vegane Käsespätzle-Rösti essen könnt, die außen super knusprig und innen ganz cremig-käsig sind? 

Wussten wir auch nicht, bis wir’s mal probiert haben. Ab auf die Einkaufsliste: 
- 400 g vegane Spätzle
- 180 g veganer Streukäse - 1 Zwiebel
- 1 TL Zwiebelpulver
- 0.5 TL Knoblauchpulver
- Salz
- Pfeffer
- Pflanzenöl zum Braten
- veganer Parmesan zum Toppen
- Räuchertofu zum Toppen
- Schnittlauch zum Toppen Das ausführliche Rezept findet ihr auch nochmal auf unserem Blog unter zuckerjagdwurst.com. #veganerezepte #käsespätzle #vegancheese #veganlunchideas #vegandeutschland #vegankochen" references the website:
Das ausführliche Rezept findet ihr auch nochmal auf unserem Blog unter zuckerjagdwurst.com.

The bio has a smart bio link to multiple recipes:
https://smart.bio/zuckerjagdwurst/

On the website, you could then capture email addresses for a newsletter by offering a freebie, promote your book etc. Basically, you want to make your content as enticing and engaging as it can be. In contrast, this post does nothing to engage me as a reader/user:

YouTheChef on Instagram: "This is my one of my absolute favorites from the French Kitchen - Lentil Bourguignon. I had this for New Years Eve along with 3 other dishes from the French Chapter - Can you guess which? This recipe dose include red wine, i

11 likes, 0 comments - youthechefapp on February 26, 2024: "This is my one of my absolute favorites from the French Kitchen - Lentil Bourguignon. I had this for New Years Eve along with 3 other dis..."

www.instagram.com

The same applies to the website:
Lentil Bourguignon - YouTheChef

Compared to:
Spargel-Erdbeer-Salat – einfach, fruchtig & lecker | Die besten Rezepte mit Gelinggarantie!

Of course, it's subjective, but to me the latter is easily digestible with the list of ingredients, large images, the steps, other recipes can easily be discovered etc.

Here's what I would do (roughly):
1. Remove the book from the homepage and move it to a dedicated landing page while making it more personal and exciting, put a preview in there etc. I'd look at the websites of publishers and on Amazon for inspiration

2. Have a mix of recipes and guides on the homepage that really drive home down your differentiator, e.g. you can create listicles like "10 delicious dishes that take less than 10 minutes" "11 dishes with 3 ingredients" and then link to the respective recipes or write full-blown articles

3. Create more images and videos, post on all platforms, including TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Since your angle is "basic and easy", there should be potential to play with this by creating absurdly simple videos that could go viral, e.g. have the video start like you're about to film food porn (cinematic slo-mo and all that) and then take a single olive and skewer it with a tooth pick

4. Run like campaigns for the Facebook page and link organically to the articles you created. Yes, Meta will restrict reach, but Facebook still works great for creating a community and can be a good ignition point. Now, more than ever, people are looking for a human connection, since the info is already there and basically everything has been said. So, if you become the Danish guy with awesome and easy recipes that's better than being a faceless entity
5. Put ads on the site (Adsense, then later Raptive) and embed affiliate links for cooking ware and related products (the site above does this pretty well)

Basically, you want to create a micro ecosystem of great, valuable content with different monetization methods. Currently, if you buy ads and the person isn't buying the book, the money is gone and that's it.

Scott de Long, founder of ViralNova, has a challenge following a similar approach with weekly updates that has a lot of valuable info:
One Year Challenge: Turn a $20k Investment into $500k

Good luck!

 

[Frederik O. Pete]

I am not religious, but thank you Gsuz!

Kudos for taking action! Some things I noticed:
---
Good luck!

This was exactly the kind of feedback I've been looking for.
I'll dissect your message, turn it into todo actions, and I will be back when they are implemented.

One thing about the pricing:
So, the paperback costs about 11 for amazon to print - Hardcover is 16.
So with the price at 25, I make around 4 (Amazon takes 40% of the cut...)
Amazon for printing is not sustainable for the long run, I'll change when books start flying

But my question is: Should the price for my PDF be the same as the book?
I mean, with the book, you get a physical copy. The PDF is just a file.
I can only see the producers point of view, I don't really get what it's like for a customers perspective.
Can you explain it to me?

I will implement the changes, because I believe you are right, even thought I don't fully understand the price thing.
I can understand something is wrong haha

Ah, about the Ebook on amazon, I think I will remove it all together and only sell the PDF on my website.
The Amazon Ebook format looks terrible, my PDF looks better.

Again thanks!

If anyone has other points to add, I am all ears

 

[Bounce Back]

I don't think I've seen it asked but why in the world did you quit your job before you had any sales?

 

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[Frederik O. Pete]

I don't think I've seen it asked but why in the world did you quit your job before you had any sales?

I was also unhappy with my job. I felt strangled, tired, exhausted every single day. Dread, depression, anxiety.
I hated every single second of it, all I was thinking about was quitting so I could focus on my project here.

My savings allow me to live with no sales for the next 2-3 months, if I don't sell anything, I might get a job, I might start some online work gigs - I saw some threads about it on this forum.

It's tough, it's hard - But I believe it's supposed to be like that.
I am doing better in general than when I was working my job.

I'd much rather do what I have done and fail, go broke, move home to mama and keep trying than find a new job.
8 hours 5 days a week is so much time spent. It's insane - Not for me

Not knocking other peoples choices - Do what you want - This is what I want

 

[Bounce Back]

Sounds like you are seeing it realistically at a minimum.

My personal suggestion would be to try to pivot to targeting the non-vegetarian/non-vegan market. It is much larger in the countries with $$$. So if you start maybe some 1-day vegan a week challenge or something like that now you can pitch the book to a much larger audience. "I thought I couldn't do it but I got this book and made one of the recipes per week and the difference has been insane and I look forward to it" type marketing - maybe some social videos where someone tries to follow it for 30 days, etc.. Just a different perspective.

(Above could be the same book just a different landing page/marketing strategy to be clear)

 

[Frederik O. Pete]

Challenges are a very good idea for content and engagement - It's noted!
Getting more social with it is also not a bad idea - It noted aswell.

Regarding the non-veggie market:
I chose the vegan/vegetarian market because:
1. It's kinda niche - but not so much anymore. A lot of vegan blogs and content creators out there.
2. I'm familiar with the issues surrounding the transition from eating everything to veggies.

When I was 18, I decided to go vegan after watching a presentation from some animal wellfare organization. Completely blew my mind. Mama was doing the cooking back then, so I nagged at her to cook more vegan food and start eating like this too so she can live longer.

Good intentions, not the right way to do it. I personally believe the whole foods vegan diet is superior, but telling people "Meat is murder" and "You're a killer for eating meat" and crazy vegan propaganda like that- That's insane. That's not how you influence people haha.

So, I tried to make the cookbook I always wanted myself and the cookbook I could have given to my mom back then and say here - Cook this, let's eat.

And for the brand, I want it to be a soft liberal approach to food behavior change. I'm a liberal (in the danish sense, might mean something different in the US and abroad haha) I do not care what you eat, where it's from and if you tortured the chicken yourself - None of my business.

But if you do want to eat healthier and incorporate more veggies in your diet, try one of my recipes.
Don't go vegan - Just eat more greens.

My diet is 90% vegan right now, 10% whatever and this works for me. People should do what works for them.
As long as there is obesity in this world, I believe there is a need for books like mine.

A bit of a rant, a little off topic, but that's me haha

Oh, and 3: Have you tried finding a recipe online and the page is just half a book? So much crap before the actual recipe.

I'm aware of the "jump to recipe" button - Still...

 

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[ygtrhos]

Take my advice with scrutiny, but I think you might need to build a community and you might need to build a funnel and a product ladder.

 

[AceVentures]

Oh man that's not much to play with. With 2-3mo of runway it makes it challenging.

Maybe the stress will push you to challenge yourself more.

Maybe it will make you anxious and impotent.

There's another thread of a dude here that moved to another city with next to no money planning to sleep in his car and he was up and running with a job and moved into an apartment within a couple of weeks I think.

The point being if shit hits the fan if you're on your feet you can make things happen.

If you don't have any money you have to acquire it.

If your product or service isn't selling and you need to bring in money, don't be afraid of offering yourself to whatever gives you money, a job included.

You need to make some money. Sell products and services or work a job or freelance or trade Yu-Gi-Oh cards on ebay or repair microwaves or clean floors or whatever you got to do to prevent you from going bust.

If you're working sales, why don't you get in with a good sales team?

You can develop your skills, learn how to sell better and save up as much as you can while living frugally. And working your business until it becomes valuable enough to exchange for money.

 

[biophase]

I don’t know, sounds like a huge missed opportunity to me. If your boss gives you the millionaire fastlane as a book to read to try to improve his business, you probably could have learned a lot while having somebody pay for it.

You could’ve taken that opportunity to change your entire job description from something you hated to something that you would be excited to do.

 

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[ygtrhos]

I don’t know, sounds like a huge missed opportunity to me. If your boss gives you the millionaire fastlane as a book to read to try to improve his business, you probably could have learned a lot while having somebody pay for it.

You could’ve taken that opportunity to change your entire job description from something you hated to something that you would be excited to do.

We do not know what kind of employer he had.

Maybe he is just a manager that wanted to improve the quality of his department, but does not really control the job definitions, in a huge conglomerate. (this was my situation)

It could be also the thing you say: in a small company it is definitely possible.

 

[Frederik O. Pete]

It was a small company start-up that has grown well, gutter cleaning business in Denmark. Very profitable business, fresh fairly untapped market, but it's a logistical nightmare.

It doesn't really matter who my boss was, what the business was or the opportunities I missed.

Working there was going against the CENTS principles.

I didn't own it - No control
It's very hard to scale because of the logistics.
A human resource company, passivity grade C - from the Millionaire Fastlane book. Huge future potential, but the working conditions... It was not for me.

Don't worry about me about making a living. I speak danish and I live in Europe, it's very easy for me to find a job that's well paid (because of my language). I'm not gonna go live on the streets or go broke for religious like some people do.

Mentally, after reading the Millionaire Fastlane , it's just gonna be crazy tough to have a job again. Ofcourse I need to pay my bills but... yeah, working to make someone else rich is hard once your eyes are open.

 

[IceCreamAction]

I'm not going to harp on your previous job, congratulations on making the plunge.

After skimming the thread I googled the below, maybe something to consider?

 

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[Frederik O. Pete]

Quick update:

• Prices are updated
• Recipe page design is updated
• More recipes are added to the site - Currently adding the newest ones
• I received my new phone with a proper camera and started posting reels on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.

And... I made my first sale!

Well, I did sell 2 paperbacks from Amazon, but only made 3usd pr. book with the old price (now only around 1usd) and I got those sales because I accidently spent 50-70usd on Amazon advertisement...

But this time my Ebook was purchased at 19,95 euros
This is with a small marketing effort and a website that is not "done".

Once the website is "done", I'll focus on marketing, then optimizing and automating along the way.

Thanks for all the advice!

maybe something to consider?

Yes! I am also making a 1 small Ebook for each of the 10 Kitchens with 10 recipes, availble for 4.95eur - So I can market specifically to people who are just looking for recipes from that specific kitchen.

What do you think about my plan? Am I missing something?

 

[cYn]

I’m rooting for you man. Keep at it.