returning and accountability

[cornishpasty]

I have been away from this forum for a couple months - been focussing on side projects that have taken up a lot of my time. But now I am committing more time to the forum, it's been a great source of inspiration and is in my opinion one of the best places to be on the internet.

So to give myself a level of accountability, I am going to use this thread to give general updates about my projects and my Fastlane progress. So here goes:

Where I'm at right now
- I have been doing work for 3 home improvement businesses, managing their Facebook ad campaigns, creating sales funnels and some database reactivation help.
- Each one started with offering my services for free, I reached out to these guys both in person and via Facebook direct messages. The proposition was simple: a 2-week free trial to prove my systems worked, and if they were happy they'd leave me a testimonial and we could also discuss working together. Out of the 3, the first two chose not to progress past the free period, but my latest has now paid me for another month of service (basically a couple hours work a week to check campaigns and provide statistics and request updates their side on conversions etc).
- While I consider this a success, I think it has made me realise that I do not want to go down the 'agency' route. In fact I hate that word and the constant tinkering and bending to the clients' requests has put me off pursuing this further. I'm happy to keep servicing this current client but long-term I don't think it's for me. I want to get out of the rat race because I'm sick of having to do what others tell me to do; the service business model doesn't completely free me of this restraint.

So what next?
Myself and a former colleague have been flirting with the idea of starting a business together. We have a 3-page list of business ideas that we brainstormed throughout our time working together, and it is time to push the needle. There was always one idea that stuck out to us both and this afternoon I have reached out to a few manufacturers regarding a product and so the plan is by next weeks' update to have ordered some samples. In fact, here are my 3 main goals to have completed by this time next week:

1). Ascertain whether I can expect full commitment from my potential business partner or if this will be a solo venture. Deadline set for next Tuesday to avoid anymore time wasting.
2). Order samples from at least 3 suppliers.
3). Run a small ads campaign with simple landing page to test product interest.
4). Research Amazon keywords & ads

I will start simple - let's see where we get with these 4 goals. I’m doing this with no prior knowledge of the market I’m entering whilst also working a 9-5 so if I succeed there’s no excuse for you!

Cheers

CP

 

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[Spenny]

Welcome back, pasty. I'm glad to see you're alive and well.

 

[cornishpasty]

Thanks Spenny, good to be back

 

[cornishpasty]

Update

So, there has been some movement in places and no movement in others this week. Looking at the goals I set last week:

1). Ascertain whether I can expect full commitment from my potential business partner or if this will be a solo venture. Deadline set for next Tuesday to avoid anymore time wasting.
Deadline for this is today but I will move it to Friday as we're having lunch tomorrow to discuss everything. Definitive answer will be this week still so that's good.

2). Order samples from at least 3 suppliers.
I've not completed this. I've been having a back and forth with 2 suppliers currently & am finding they're both quite limited with what they can produce. Also potentially changing product completely as a result of the findings from goal 3...

3). Run a small ads campaign with simple landing page to test product interest.
Ran 2 £5 per day PPC campaigns just to get a feel for clicks and search volumes. I ran 2 because I was also testing another idea alongside my original idea. More volume and clicks in the second idea but inconclusive so I think I will let these run for another week. I don't want to be caught in analysis paralysis so I will set a hard deadline to make a final decision after this second week and just run with it.

4). Research Amazon keywords & ads
In regards to this goal, I have done a bit here and there to get a general feel for it and reached out to a YouTuber who runs a couple of Amazon FBA businesses. I basically offered to work for them for free in exchange for information which they seem interested in so we're having a meeting / interview next week. It feels like this is a good way to learn on the job and gain insights from someone with a nice wealth of experience which in theory should speed up my success in launching my product.

Miscellaneous:
I received an email from a business who were referred to me by my current Facebook ads client, which is funny because I am trying to move away from that model. This prospect is a business consultancy for SMEs and are asking me if I can help them with their LinkedIn lead generation, which is not at all what I do for their referrer lol.

I do have quite a lot of experience in LinkedIn having used that outlet in my 9-5 so I could do the work pretty easily. It made me realise I actually have quite a breadth of experience in both outbound and inbound lead gen. As a result I have been toying with the idea of positioning myself as some sort of lead generation bounty hunter.

Essentially, businesses come to me looking for some sort of service related to lead gen, they name their bounty and I decide if I want to do it. It's not a Fastlane model but I wonder if I could use it as my vehicle to fund my other ventures such as my e-commerce business. Perhaps worth building a landing page and running some ads on it...

Goals for this week:

1). Have lunch with my potential business partner and conclude this goal.
2). Finish Google ads on 2 product ideas and make final decision.
3). Get to work with this referral.
4). Bounty hunter landing page test.

 

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