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What needs to have happened for you to be happy with progress?

Andy Black

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What needs to have happened for you to be happy with progress (this week)?


TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, this is Andy Black. Today is Monday the 10th of October, it's the start of a working week and I'm thinking about goals for this week and things I need to get done and would like to get done that when I look back on the week, I will be happy with the progress I've made.

The question I've actually asked myself is, on Sunday, when I look back on this week, what needs to have happened for me to be happy with the progress? I think that's a very good question to ask yourself, rather than just, set a task list and checklist of things. What needs to have happened for you to be happy with progress? It doesn't mean you've actually got stuff done necessarily, but you're happy with the progress.

For me, I'm running a business. The most important client for my business is my own business, so really I need to be making sure that each week my business is getting a bit further ahead. Obviously, I've got loads of work I need to do for all my clients. I've got to do invoicing, I've got to do my book ... Not bookkeeping, but keep a track of who's behind on payments and chase it up and all that kind of stuff. I've got to keep continuously sending stuff to my bookkeeper to make sure that it's all getting added to the accounting system, all that kind of stuff. I consider that the sand in my day, that's the stuff that needs to get every week. It has to keep getting done.

If I keep doing the same thing every week I'm going to end up in the same place. It's really important for me to keep moving my business forward a little bit more. The most important client you can work on in your business is your own business. I've got clients from my business and, obviously, I'll be working on them today, later this morning, this afternoon. I want to start the week by thinking what would I like to have done this week to be happy that I'm moving my business forward?

I've identified three things like, fairly innocuous one is that all my ... On my blog, my website, my YouTube channel, my Facebook page and various other social media platforms. I don't have a consistent image, I don't have any image. I've not loaded anything. LinkedIn is another one, I've got about 7,000 connections. I've just got the standard LinkedIn header. I'd like to get that standardized. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but it just looks I made the effort. I'll get that done this week. That will just inch my business forward slowly.

Something else that I'd really want to make progress on this week is to get all my clients onto automated invoicing and automated payments. How I get it done isn't important, but if I can get to the point where most of my clients are paying ... They pay in advance, typically. I've got a few clients who are left paying in arrears, they typically pay in advance for the coming month. I would like that to be automated, because it's starting to become a chore. I've got 10, 15 clients now. It's starting to become a chore to actually create these invoices constantly and I'm doing it in the classic daft way of using Microsoft Word, editing it, saving as a PDF, mailing it to them.

When I had one client or three clients in a month, invoicing three times in a month, that was fine. Now I'm getting to 10, 15 a month it's starting to become a pain. The other thing is I have to chase payments. Payment is coming in all sort of different methods and it's just getting a bit confusing and annoying and tedious to do. When it starts getting tedious, that's the time to then fix it.

What I'm looking at is maybe FreshBooks as the accounting platform that can do all the automated subscriptions and invoicing and track it all and maybe my accountant will be happy to use that platform when she's doing my accounts for the quarter and the year. Maybe I hook up FreshBooks with Stripe for the automated payment gateway which uses clients' credit cards and maybe they'll actually like that, because then it's on their credit card, ... It might help with their cash flow.

That's the second thing that I want to do make progress on this week. I'm not necessarily going to get it done, I'm going to get it all implemented and have all my clients onto that platform using Stripe and moved fully over it to FreshBooks, but I'd like to make progress on that.

Then the third one, the one that I'd really like to get done this week, so that come Sunday I'd be really happy, get one client signed up where I'm going to build a landing page for them and an AdWords Campaign and I'm actually going to bill for the build of the landing page. To date, I'll often not charge for the landing page, because I need to get it done for me to be able to do my job of driving relevant visitors to the website and getting them to ring the company.

Without the right landing page, often it doesn't work. I can make it work without a landing page, we can buy data, for instance and often, a client website is good enough, but some client websites just aren't good enough. They're really, really poor, they don't look good on a mobile, they don't even work on a mobile, so we can create a very simple landing page, I can create an AdWords Campaign, drive visitors to the page and hopefully generate more work and business.

If I can generate more work and business with this first page, then it can justify creating another one, because first off, the client can see that it's working for them and if we do it again and again and again for all their other services and maybe they can generate even more revenue.

Then the other thing is hopefully, I'll actually generate more revenue for them and they can reinvest that back in. Typically, I don't get my money from the client ... Well, obviously, I do, but in my head, I don't get the money from the client. I get the money from the clients' customers, so I have to get more customers to the client, give them more money and they'll pass some to me. That's how I view it. If I can't get them more and more customers, then my client can't keep paying me, simple as that.

That's my job in a nutshell. If I can get a package like that, I don't know, it might be something as cheap and simple as like 200 Euro, we'll charge 200 Euro for creating a nice, simple landing page, it'll have a tap-to-call button, it'll have all the tracking in place and various other little bits, images, bullet points of the benefits, it will link to your main page, your main website in the footer. The purpose is to get you phone calls or email enquiries.

If I can charge 200 Euro for that, build an AdWords account Campaign, maybe I don't charge for the AdWords Campaign build. Maybe this is actually just re-framing what I'm doing, because currently I'm charging for the first month where I build an AdWords Campaign and the landing page is free. Maybe it's the other way around, but I don't know. Maybe I'm just re-framing something, but I'm going to try this. I've got a couple of prospects in mind that I'll do it with.

Hope that's helped you, some of the actual things that I'm doing, but also the thinking behind it of trying to move my business forward. All right, good luck.
 
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Motivationcity

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What needs to have happened for you to be happy with progress (this week)?

Work ON your business, not just IN your business.


TRANSCRIPTION

(To be added.)


I very much disagree with the qoute "Money is proof you helped your fellow man." (Unknown)

That know of many people with money that have not helped anyone.
 

Andy Black

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I very much disagree with the qoute "Money is proof you helped your fellow man." (Unknown)

That know of many people with money that have not helped anyone.
It's not about whether it's true or not, but whether it helps you.
 

nradam123

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@Andy Black Sounds good man, step by step you improve everyday.
It sounds like you need to automate payments using Freshbooks or something now, you don't want to waste a lot of time due to accounting.

Also, in the coming months are you planning to scale your business by hiring people or something like that? Freelancing is not going to help me reach my long term goal, although I do not have a lot of business I am already delegating for free time to market by business.

@Motivationcity Give a few examples? I want to know who is paying without getting no value in return.
 
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Andy Black

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@Andy Black Sounds good man, step by step you improve everyday.
It sounds like you need to automate payments using Freshbooks or something now, you don't want to waste a lot of time due to accounting.

Also, in the coming months are you planning to scale your business by hiring people or something like that? Freelancing is not going to help me reach my long term goal, although I do not have a lot of business I am already delegating for free time to market by business.

Yeah, I like to solve problems when they become a problem. The invoicing thing is starting to be a problem, so I'll now solve it.

I can just about manage building and reporting on all the AdWords campaigns, but it will soon be a bottleneck. Again, I'll solve that problem when it becomes an actual problem.

I like the line: "Overthinking is the art of solving problems you don't have."




Thanks for the feedback on the video too. Yeah... keep doing daily vlogs and then daily "nuggets" (?) and I'll be progressing rapidly.

"Get started. Keep going."

"Keep chipping away."
 

HoneyBadger

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Love it man - you and I think a like - I always break sections of time down and figure out what I would feel proud to have completed by the end of it. I am actually starting a web app/site & digital lead gen agency at the moment so I love reading your updates by the way.


Still trying to figure out how to price it all... xD
 

Motivationcity

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@Andy Black Sounds good man, step by step you improve everyday.
It sounds like you need to automate payments using Freshbooks or something now, you don't want to waste a lot of time due to accounting.

Also, in the coming months are you planning to scale your business by hiring people or something like that? Freelancing is not going to help me reach my long term goal, although I do not have a lot of business I am already delegating for free time to market by business.

@Motivationcity Give a few examples? I want to know who is paying without getting no value in return.

Take asphalt seal coating for instance. There are so thousands of people making 6-7 figures off of the business, and it's actually a fact that it does not help asphalt.

There is business's out there that makes people believe that they are getting a good product. But when you actually do the research. Facts suggest differently.

Mind you there is good quality asphalt sealer but most go the cheaper not as effective route.
 
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Andy Black

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Still trying to figure out how to price it all... xD

Two pieces of advice I like about pricing:
  1. Get it wrong. Don't get too precious about it. Put something out there and learn from it. :)

  2. Price so you're happy to do the work, even if nothing else comes from it.
 

Nicoknowsbest

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Yeah, I like to solve problems when they become a problem. The invoicing thing is starting to be a problem, so I'll now solve it.
This is so important for everybody, no matter which stage you are at. Solving problems you don't have is... action FAKING.

I like the line: "Overthinking is the art of solving problems you don't have."
100% true.

The only "problem" to always be thinking about is how to HELP more people by creating value for them.

Something else I recently learned from Andy that comes to mind now: don't think in GOALS, think in SYSTEMS.

Set up a system that helps you make progress until you reach your goals.

Great post - thanks @Andy Black
 

MJ DeMarco

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I very much disagree with the qoute "Money is proof you helped your fellow man." (Unknown)

Lemme guess, you're one of these guys who believes rich people "aren't paying their fair share?"

First, the author isn't "unknown", it's me.

You can disagree, but that wouldn't make you right as I made this statement reflecting from a "Fastlane" perspective, you are reflecting from a BS narrative fed to you by the media.

Are there people with money who didn't acquire it fairly? Legally? Ethically? Absolutely! (Look no further than our presidential election -- one candidate spent 40 years in public service and is worth 100M and didn't build or invent a damn thing, but somehow is rich?)

and it's actually a fact that it does not help asphalt.

It helps me when I need a driveway and someone who offers me an asphalt driveway at a price I feel is fair.

There is business's out there that makes people believe that they are getting a good product. But when you actually do the research. Facts suggest differently.

Then these "businesspeople" would be called scammers. Victims are buying perceived value, not actual value. And sadly, perceived value (Six pack abs in six weeks!) does move money ... so on that front, you'd be right.

Nonetheless, you are at the FASTLANE forum which means we speak from a Fastlane perspective. Before you try interjecting your thoughts about something, you should probably know what that encompasses.
 
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Andy Black

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Motivationcity

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Lemme guess, you're one of these guys who believes rich people "aren't paying their fair share?"

First, the author isn't "unknown", it's me.

You can disagree, but that wouldn't make you right as I made this statement reflecting from a "Fastlane" perspective, you are reflecting from a BS narrative fed to you by the media.

Are there people with money who didn't acquire it fairly? Legally? Ethically? Absolutely! (Look no further than our presidential election -- one candidate spent 40 years in public service and is worth 100M and didn't build or invent a damn thing, but somehow is rich?)



It helps me when I need a driveway and someone who offers me an asphalt driveway at a price I feel is fair.



Then these "businesspeople" would be called scammers. Victims are buying perceived value, not actual value. And sadly, perceived value (Six pack abs in six weeks!) does move money ... so on that front, you'd be right.

Nonetheless, you are at the FASTLANE forum which means we speak from a Fastlane perspective. Before you try interjecting your thoughts about something, you should probably know what that encompasses.


First, I would agree with your statement
"Are there people with money who didn't acquire it fairly? Legally? Ethically? Absolutely! (Look no further than our presidential election -- one candidate spent 40 years in public service and is worth 100M and didn't build or invent a damn thing, but somehow is rich?)"

These are the kind of people I'm talking about so no need to get heated. You miss took what I said and took offence to it sir.

Second, no I'm one of those people I don't listen to the media because they have a false presence on a lot of subjects. I was simply saying there are a lot of people that acquire it unfairly and take advantage of people because of a product that was known to be good then later fact stated it was actually bad like seal coating.

I owned an asphalt business for 3 years I'm not downing the seal coating or asphalt companies. But a lot do it shady so yes they would be called scammers.
 

OldFaithful

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I very much disagree with the qoute "Money is proof you helped your fellow man." (Unknown)
That know of many people with money that have not helped anyone.
I happen to LOVE that quote.
I owned an asphalt business for 3 years I'm not downing the seal coating or asphalt companies. But a lot do it shady so yes they would be called scammers.
There is no reason to judge all business by the actions of the few bad actors. The majority of business owners have provided untold value to the lives of others. Sounds like you've lost the joy in your work, but I could be mistaken. Either way, you've found the right place to grow...there is a world of positive encouragement (and many good kicks in the seat of the pants) here at this forum.
 

Motivationcity

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I happen to LOVE that quote.

There is no reason to judge all business by the actions of the few bad actors. The majority of business owners have provided untold value to the lives of others. Sounds like you've lost the joy in your work, but I could be mistaken. Either way, you've found the right place to grow...there is a world of positive encouragement (and many good kicks in the seat of the pants) here at this forum.

I did lose joy in it. That's why I left the business and moved to NC, I needed to get away from the stress and negitivity. So I started doing something I truly love and that helps people. I have a motivational website now called motivationalcity.com I am also starting to volunteer. No better way to live life than helping change people lives!
 

Motivationcity

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I happen to LOVE that quote.

There is no reason to judge all business by the actions of the few bad actors. The majority of business owners have provided untold value to the lives of others. Sounds like you've lost the joy in your work, but I could be mistaken. Either way, you've found the right place to grow...there is a world of positive encouragement (and many good kicks in the seat of the pants) here at this forum.

You are right... I retract my previous statement.
 
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Andy Black

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No better way to live life than helping change people lives!
Agreed. That's how I got started in my current business. You might be interested in the first (and second?) interviews that are bolded in my signature...
 

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