Intro and How I got unstuck from a biz/income plateau

[phantombot]

Hello everybody, I'm a long time lurker and first time poster.

If you have a company that is somehow stuck, or you have reached a plateau, then you might be interested.

I own and operate a logistics/shipping company since 2016 with a business partner.

After 7 years things were flat and not growing.

December 2022 I decided to change that.

In the last 4-5 months, I've been able to more than double my business income.

Currently, I am in an automating/delegating/creating procedures phase of my business.
But it required getting out of my comfort zone.

For a long while I was in a rut, making *enough* to float by without too much work (a few hours a week.)
But... I got frustrated and annoyed with my lack of progress (and income wasn't cutting it for my goals.)

Confronting that, I learned something valuable that I would like to share with other entrepreneurs.

The basic lesson that I learned was that I had to develop some important traits: Consistency, Discipline, Responsibility...

For example, we were not getting enough leads for our business.
What did I do? I created a Google Ads campaign. Wasn't sure if I could, but I did it anyway. It worked, hooray!

Next, our leads were costing too much, so I had to create a new way of getting business for less.
So I built our website and started adding optimized content to get us traffic.

Wasn't sure if I could, but I did it anyway. It took 6-8 months, but it worked - hooray!

After some years we had steady lead flow, but operations were a mess.
That took a few seasons and iterations to streamline the process.

We had a depressingly slow season (low $ )
Our leads plateaued, so I had to hunker down and add more content to the website.

Our "top of funnel" was leaking a lot of leads.
So I had to create a better lead gen method for our website...

I took an online "front-end development bootcamp" and updated my HTML/CSS/Javascript knowledge for 2023.
This + Zapier means almost all of our lead gen is automated.

New levels, new devils.

Now I'm looking at an AI phone receptionist solution because we miss too many calls...

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, it hasn't been a straight rise "to the top!" or anything. I was flat-broke a couple of times.

I realized that I had to put consistent, focused effort towards the mission.

I'm great at STARTING stuff and making it work... Yet, I had to develop the trait of consistent action.

So, know thyself. What you're good at, what you suck at, your personal failings... And then take action, learn a new skill, and/or get a team or a tool to fill in the missing traits.

The dream? A self-managing company, with tons of cashflow, that could be sold for lots of $ someday.

I'm still working towards that, automating tons, creating procedures and delegating the rest.

Just like in the beginning, when I quit my day job and didn't look back:

Your results are a direct result of your mindset and action. Responsibility and consistent, focused-action required.

Gnarly. Ego-destroying.

Satisfying to see progress. Gratifying to be able to "generate $" and provide a service people value with my skills.

Loving the journey.

I'm happy to talk about any of this stuff:
- Automating / delegating procedures
- Vision / mission
- Zapier / WordPress
- ChatGPT / generative AI
- Front-end development for beginners

Resources/Books:
- Anything by author / coach Dan Sullivan / Strategic Coach
- Anything by author / coach Perry Marshall (especially "80/20 Sales and Marketing")
- "Work the System" by Sam Carpenter, automating/delegating biz ops

 

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[eifesu]

Hello everybody, I'm a long time lurker and first time poster.

If you have a company that is somehow stuck, or you have reached a plateau, then you might be interested.

I own and operate a logistics/shipping company since 2016 with a business partner.

After 7 years things were flat and not growing.

December 2022 I decided to change that.

In the last 4-5 months, I've been able to more than double my business income.

Currently, I am in an automating/delegating/creating procedures phase of my business.
But it required getting out of my comfort zone.

For a long while I was in a rut, making *enough* to float by without too much work (a few hours a week.)
But... I got frustrated and annoyed with my lack of progress (and income wasn't cutting it for my goals.)

Confronting that, I learned something valuable that I would like to share with other entrepreneurs.

The basic lesson that I learned was that I had to develop some important traits: Consistency, Discipline, Responsibility...

For example, we were not getting enough leads for our business.
What did I do? I created a Google Ads campaign. Wasn't sure if I could, but I did it anyway. It worked, hooray!

Next, our leads were costing too much, so I had to create a new way of getting business for less.
So I built our website and started adding optimized content to get us traffic.

Wasn't sure if I could, but I did it anyway. It took 6-8 months, but it worked - hooray!

After some years we had steady lead flow, but operations were a mess.
That took a few seasons and iterations to streamline the process.

We had a depressingly slow season (low $ )
Our leads plateaued, so I had to hunker down and add more content to the website.

Our "top of funnel" was leaking a lot of leads.
So I had to create a better lead gen method for our website...

I took an online "front-end development bootcamp" and updated my HTML/CSS/Javascript knowledge for 2023.
This + Zapier means almost all of our lead gen is automated.

New levels, new devils.

Now I'm looking at an AI phone receptionist solution because we miss too many calls...

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, it hasn't been a straight rise "to the top!" or anything. I was flat-broke a couple of times.

I realized that I had to put consistent, focused effort towards the mission.

I'm great at STARTING stuff and making it work... Yet, I had to develop the trait of consistent action.

So, know thyself. What you're good at, what you suck at, your personal failings... And then take action, learn a new skill, and/or get a team or a tool to fill in the missing traits.

The dream? A self-managing company, with tons of cashflow, that could be sold for lots of $ someday.

I'm still working towards that, automating tons, creating procedures and delegating the rest.

Just like in the beginning, when I quit my day job and didn't look back:

Your results are a direct result of your mindset and action. Responsibility and consistent, focused-action required.

Gnarly. Ego-destroying.

Satisfying to see progress. Gratifying to be able to "generate $" and provide a service people value with my skills.

Loving the journey.

I'm happy to talk about any of this stuff:
- Automating / delegating procedures
- Vision / mission
- Zapier / WordPress
- ChatGPT / generative AI
- Front-end development for beginners

Resources/Books:
- Anything by author / coach Dan Sullivan / Strategic Coach
- Anything by author / coach Perry Marshall (especially "80/20 Sales and Marketing")
- "Work the System" by Sam Carpenter, automating/delegating biz ops

Congratulations on your progress !
How do you envision the upcoming 5-10 years ?

 

[phantombot]

Congratulations on your progress !
How do you envision the upcoming 5-10 years ?

I'd like this to be a completely self-managing operation within the next 1-2 years.

Tech is moving fast, and we're implementing a lot of new stuff.

I'm still having fun with it, and I still have a vision for where things can go. We'll see.

 

[eifesu]

Tech is moving fast, and we're implementing a lot of new stuff.

I'm still having fun with it, and I still have a vision for where things can go. We'll see.

Thinking about scaling up with the tech ? That definitely could work wonders

 

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[phantombot]

Thinking about scaling up with the tech ? That definitely could work wonders

Yes, I'm realizing so many brick and mortar/service or otherwise "boring" businesses could do MUCH more by implementing this stuff.

Automations / Zapier / etc.

 

[eifesu]

Yes, I'm realizing so many brick and mortar/service or otherwise "boring" businesses could do MUCH more by implementing this stuff.

Automations / Zapier / etc.

Can’t wait to hear more progress soon !

 

[Jobless]

Highly enjoyed your post.

Do you have a process / system for delegation you wish to share?
Where/how do you document procedures?
How do you find bottlenecks and prioritize solving them?

 

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[phantombot]

Highly enjoyed your post.

Do you have a process / system for delegation you wish to share?
Where/how do you document procedures?
How do you find bottlenecks and prioritize solving them?

Delegation process/system: Think of the whole business as a system made out of sub-systems.

Borrowed heavily from 'Work the System' by Sam Carpenter, which tells the story of how he automated his call-center business.

I have years of experience working a customer service/sales call-center jobs, so the examples he gave really stuck with me.

First I try to ELIMINATE anything that doesn't belong to make it super simple

If it can be automated: then I build/change whatever has to happen to automate it.

If it must be delegated: Then write out/make a video of how I do it, write out a Google Doc with pics. Easy enough to know how to do the job/task in 10 minutes

What to automate/delegate: I think of the whole business as encompassing Sales - Marketing - Operations

Operations is, "whatever needs to happen to fulfill the product/service"

My background is in direct-response / sales copywriting (freelance after the lame call-center work.) So I'm used to thinking in terms of "funnels..."

The idea of the sales funnel is really popular, this is a similar concept, except it encompasses operations, too.

Find the bottleneck in the Marketing-Sales-Operations funnel, fix that, then on to the next one.

Then, to borrow from Jay Abraham, to grow a business I need to increase profits and/or decrease expenses.

And there are three ways to increase profits: Increase # of clients, Increase # of times they buy, Increase the average amount they spend. Improve all three, and the results multiply by each other. Geometric growth, instead of linear.

And then, an 80/20 Perry Marshall idea: Focus on the 20% of actions that are driving 80% of the results.

There are certain types of services/jobs we just don't touch anymore, for example.

We eliminated them and never missed the revenue because there are so many fewer problems/headaches/etc.

... And that's basically it.

We have one virtual assistant in addition to me and my business partner.

Right now, we're going through some growing pains with administrative things, but we're working it out.

Some other stuff, like how to hire slow/fire fast, find and vet good vendors, turn competitors into your allies, etc.

 

[MRiabov]

Hello everybody, I'm a long time lurker and first time poster.

If you have a company that is somehow stuck, or you have reached a plateau, then you might be interested.

I own and operate a logistics/shipping company since 2016 with a business partner.

After 7 years things were flat and not growing.

December 2022 I decided to change that.

In the last 4-5 months, I've been able to more than double my business income.

Currently, I am in an automating/delegating/creating procedures phase of my business.
But it required getting out of my comfort zone.

For a long while I was in a rut, making *enough* to float by without too much work (a few hours a week.)
But... I got frustrated and annoyed with my lack of progress (and income wasn't cutting it for my goals.)

Confronting that, I learned something valuable that I would like to share with other entrepreneurs.

The basic lesson that I learned was that I had to develop some important traits: Consistency, Discipline, Responsibility...

For example, we were not getting enough leads for our business.
What did I do? I created a Google Ads campaign. Wasn't sure if I could, but I did it anyway. It worked, hooray!

Next, our leads were costing too much, so I had to create a new way of getting business for less.
So I built our website and started adding optimized content to get us traffic.

Wasn't sure if I could, but I did it anyway. It took 6-8 months, but it worked - hooray!

After some years we had steady lead flow, but operations were a mess.
That took a few seasons and iterations to streamline the process.

We had a depressingly slow season (low $ )
Our leads plateaued, so I had to hunker down and add more content to the website.

Our "top of funnel" was leaking a lot of leads.
So I had to create a better lead gen method for our website...

I took an online "front-end development bootcamp" and updated my HTML/CSS/Javascript knowledge for 2023.
This + Zapier means almost all of our lead gen is automated.

New levels, new devils.

Now I'm looking at an AI phone receptionist solution because we miss too many calls...

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, it hasn't been a straight rise "to the top!" or anything. I was flat-broke a couple of times.

I realized that I had to put consistent, focused effort towards the mission.

I'm great at STARTING stuff and making it work... Yet, I had to develop the trait of consistent action.

So, know thyself. What you're good at, what you suck at, your personal failings... And then take action, learn a new skill, and/or get a team or a tool to fill in the missing traits.

The dream? A self-managing company, with tons of cashflow, that could be sold for lots of $ someday.

I'm still working towards that, automating tons, creating procedures and delegating the rest.

Just like in the beginning, when I quit my day job and didn't look back:

Your results are a direct result of your mindset and action. Responsibility and consistent, focused-action required.

Gnarly. Ego-destroying.

Satisfying to see progress. Gratifying to be able to "generate $" and provide a service people value with my skills.

Loving the journey.

I'm happy to talk about any of this stuff:
- Automating / delegating procedures
- Vision / mission
- Zapier / WordPress
- ChatGPT / generative AI
- Front-end development for beginners

Resources/Books:
- Anything by author / coach Dan Sullivan / Strategic Coach
- Anything by author / coach Perry Marshall (especially "80/20 Sales and Marketing")
- "Work the System" by Sam Carpenter, automating/delegating biz ops

man I don't want to promote anything or anything, but do you know about clickfunnels? That shit's wack. You can build entire funnels in just seconds.

Also, reading Dotcom Secrets will (highly likely) propel your business forward. Just saying.

Note: I am an entrepreneur, but haven't lifted off the ground myself yet. But that book and clickfunnels are awesome.

 

[phantombot]

man I don't want to promote anything or anything, but do you know about clickfunnels? That shit's wack. You can build entire funnels in just seconds.

Also, reading Dotcom Secrets will (highly likely) propel your business forward. Just saying.

Note: I am an entrepreneur, but haven't lifted off the ground myself yet. But that book and clickfunnels are awesome.

Clickfunnels is good, I also recommend Systeme.io since it's all-in-one and less $.

 

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