Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (November 27, 2020) Entrepreneur

Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (November 27, 2020)
How I got 17 project inquiries from a random tweet
Our consultancy is averaging $60k profit per month right now since COVID began - all without spending a dollar on ads. Here is what channels we are using.
How to find patients as a surgeon?
Is Black Friday good for entrepreneurship? Is there any opportunity outside of e-commerce?
Starting a small recycling company
10 things to keep in mind in early days of your product or startup
Round 6: Who needs a free customized social media strategy that actually works?
How do I distinguish between wanting to actually be an entrepreneur and simply liking the idea of being an entrepreneur?
Best consulting websites for small agencies?
Conducting Due Diligence on a US company
What basic math, accounting and finance concept should one understand very well for running a business?
Growth Hacking Software That Pays Users for Signing Up/Completing a Certain Action?
How do I find a specific type of client for my professional services?
Launching web based SaaS this Monday - do you have any advice that isn't so well documented?
What are debt options available to a solopreneur without a mortgage/tons of assets?
What I'm Building and Why.
How you can reduce bounce rate from your webpage?
I made an animated summary of "The lean Start Up" by Eric Ries. I hope this is useful to you.
Professional
Are you estimating or selling?
Hey, my friend started a small plant business. I’m helping her with a few things. Let us know how the website it and if you have any ideas for how she can grow (no pun intended). Any ideas or feedback are welcomed. Thanks
Copyright v Publicity Rights: Do you think it would be generally legal to make this coloring book?
What apps are there for logging client information?
Modeling the Obligatory Late November Sale in the Creator Economy

Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (November 27, 2020)

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 05:11 AM PST

Please use this thread to share any accomplishment you care to gloat about, and some lessons learned.

This is a weekly thread to encourage new members to participate, and post their accomplishments, as well as give the veterans an opportunity to inspire the up-and-comers.

Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts.

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How I got 17 project inquiries from a random tweet

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 05:12 AM PST

Andrew Wilkinson is the co-founder of Tiny Capital, a company famous as The Berkshire Hathaway of The Internet.

Last Wednesday, I noticed his fresh tweet (to be honest, I have notifications turned on 😉) and replied with a link to our Dribbble.

No expectations, just a casual share since I thought he might find it useful.

Then it all started. For someone who has never really killed it on Twitter and most of the time screams into the void, that was huge for me.

Likes, follows, replies - a couple of hours of constant dopamine hits.

A screenshot of the tweet

Some stats

After 15 hours:

+ 92 new followers to my personal twitter account

+ 51 new followers to Altalogy twitter account

+ 53 new followers to Altalogy Dribbble account

+ 11 project inquiries (4 my twitter DM, 1 Altalogy twitter DM, 1 Dribbble DM, email 4, Linkedin 1

Total one week later:

+ 101 new followers to my personal twitter account

+ 58 new followers to Altalogy twitter account

+ 64 new followers to Altalogy Dribbble account

+ 17 project inquiries (5 my twitter DM, 1 Altalogy twitter DM, 3 Dribbble DM, email 7, Linkedin 1

Also, tweet analytics.

What's interesting to me is that almost 1/3 of people who visited my profile hit follow (345 profile clicks -> 101). That's of course approximate since some people may came to my profile from other sources.

The other thing is my company account follows - that's surprising to me since the account has not been referenced in the tweet and looked mostly abandoned. We rarely share anything and had around 50 followers back then.

My theory why it worked

- I think the thumbnail showed a shot that matched what Andrew was looking for - typography, color, branding. That wasn't my intention, though. It was just the last shot uploaded.

- I was quick. When I posted my reply, there was only two of them and mine was the one with any visual aspects to it. It was also less than a minute after Andrew sent his tweet.

- Andrew replied he loved it - best social proof ever. When I talked to people who decided to get in touch, most of them mentioned that that was exactly what triggered them to reach out.

- It didn't feel as much of a self-promo. I just recommended to check it out, no begging for contact, etc. That goes a long way IMO.

Key takeaway

That is flashy stuff. One-off spike. It helps a lot to have these every now and then as it keeps you motivated and provides new opportunities.

But this is not a sustainable way to grow.

Focus on repeatable actions and tactics. Almost no product/service took off on a single PH launch or viral tweet.

Thanks for reading thus far, your feedback/questions are more than welcome! 😉

Also, the original tweet and my twitter if you like to say Hi! :)

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Our consultancy is averaging $60k profit per month right now since COVID began - all without spending a dollar on ads. Here is what channels we are using.

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 09:02 AM PST

We've mapped out exact client acquisition process for you, including every lead generation channel we use + cost per lead per channel + lead volume per channel

Along the way, we experimented with a dozen different client acquisition strategies. Some worked great, some were a total waste of money, and some in-between.

I figure I'd write out my own experiences so that anyone here who is building somewhat of a similar business can avoid mistakes that we've made.

Important Note: We sell a high-ticket offer that ranges between $1k to $5k depending on the tier. The strategies I mention here are MUCH more suited if you're in this ballpark as well. If you're lower-ticket than this, there are probably other approaches that would work better.

Top Performing Channel: Facebook Organic

Organic Facebook lead generation has been our top performing channel. It makes up roughly 60% of our total lead flow.

The process has a few steps.

First, we optimized Facebook profile and aesthetic to clearly articulate the story and value prop. This means a total upgrade to your pictures and content on your wall, plus appropriate links to your external site and content.

Then, you joined Facebook groups that specifically had an audience similar to your ideal client profile. Facebook now has groups for almost every topic/theme out there on the market, even B2B groups. It's a big misconception that Facebook is only B2C. We are entirely B2B and Facebook is our biggest money maker.

Once we were in these groups, the mission was to share QUALITY educational content. But just as importantly, NON-PROMOTION oriented content. The purpose here is NOT to sell yourself or your services. It's purely to help that community with your knowledge.

We did this across 30+ groups consistently, every week. This led to a massive number of people DMing us, sending us friend requests, and engaging in the comments below.

This is how leads enter our funnel. From there, we can have a quick convo in the DM's and soon after, move to either phone call and discovery/demo.

We are now getting those people inside our group, so it becomes fairly easy to get someone to also opt-in to a call because we're constantly sharing even more helpful content, providing links to webinars, hosting giveaways, and running the community.

This strategy give us around 15 to 20 high-quality leads per week.

Our primary spend here are the few tools that we use to manage our content posting and Facebook group. Each month, these tools cost around $40.

We also have an assistant who manages a lot of the actual content sharing and DM conversations for us, and we pay them a few hundred per month.

Overall, our CPL here is around $5. Primarily, the expense is that it takes time to write great content and then managing follow up conversations.

Second Best Performing Channel: Linkedin Organic

Linkedin generates around 30% of our total lead flow.

Like Facebook, the first step is to optimize the Linkedin profile so that it resembles a sales/landing page rather than just a janky online resume..

But the cool difference between Linkedin and Facebook is that it's way easier to proactively find your ideal customers on Linkedin.

The way we do this is we have subscriptions to both Apollo and Sales Navigator. Both tools help us utilize highly specific search criteria (company size, employee count, industry, job title, seniority, funding, miscellaneous keywords etc) so we can locate our exact decision makers.

Once we have a list of a few thousand quality contacts, we import it into our Linkedin automation tool. This enables us to connect with 75 new people on Linkedin every single day, using a multi-step campaign. Volume matters, after all, outreach is still a numbers game.

However, the important thing to know about Linkedin outreach copy is that it shouldn't be overly salesy. Linkedin as a channel is great for outreach because it isn't super saturated, but people there REALLY HATE getting pitched.

Instead, keep things conversational, friendly, and more dialogue oriented. Instead of setting your automation up so it's pich after pitch after pitch, set it up so it's curiosity and question driven. Aim to start a dialogue, and once the prospect replies, manually carry the conversation through to a point where it's logical to suggest a meeting.

Good metrics to aim for is a 35% and up acceptance rate, 10% reply rate, and 5% meeting booking rate. Our best campaign has actually been 45%, 16%, and 10% respectively (on those above KPIs).

However, Linkedin doesn't just end at outbound messaging.

Just like Facebook, it has an inbound, content-driven element as well.

In fact, it's EASIER for your content to go viral organically on Linkedin, than on almost any other social media platform.

This is because Linkedin is still in its infancy when it comes to content sharing. Most people don't do it. As well, Linkedin hasn't really turned into a pay-to-play model yet, meaning you don't have to spend money on ads in order to get eyeballs (Facebook and IG have already evolved into a heavily pay-to-play model).

So when you share epic content on Linkedin, share consistently at 3 to 4 times a week, and utilize some nifty behind-the-scenes Linkedin growth hacks to spike your content engagement (ie. capitalizing on the 1-hour algorithm spike, collaborating with other well-known influencers to borrow their reach, and many other hacks), you can actually have your content reach TENS OF THOUSANDS of people completely free.

This type of reach is really hard to get on Facebook, Instagram, and most other channels.

And by getting this reach, you'll see your own follower count and inbound DM's spike.

Linkedin generates us 7 to 12 high-quality sales demos per week.

Primary expense here are the two tools we use for Linkedin automation and list-building. Collectively, they cost around $150.

We also have our assistant helping here as well to handle the DMs and content engagement.

CPL for this channel is around $8. There is a time expense however when it comes to building lists and content creation. However, it's not that significant.

Supplemental Channel: Referrals & Partnerships

Referrals and Partnerships make up 5% of our lead flow.

This is quite straightforward.

If you do good work for your customers, they'll refer you to friends.

And sometimes, you can even incentivize your clients to make referrals to you by giving them a 10% finders fee.

Just make sure you only bring it up if that particular client enjoyed the experience with you. It's pretty awkward to ask for referrals from a customer that didn't see value from your services.

Just like podcasting, this has been a pretty passive strategy for us. We don't proactively go and find referral partners. Usually, we just stumble on them at networking events, or during my outreach, or we'll even get hit up by people wanting to collaborate.

However, if you want this to be a cornerstone strategy, you can proactively build a list of dream partners, and outreach to them explaining how a partnership can be mutually beneficial.

We usually give a 20% referral fee to dedicated referral partners to incentivize them.

We typically get 1 to 2 demos a week from referrals and partnerships.

The expense here is that we give 10% to 20% of closed revenue to the referral partner. However, it's purely variable, so we can accept that.

Important Note

It's critical to NEVER try to implement multiple new strategies simultaneously.

It's hard to make any new channel to work. You have to set it up, measure, iterate, etc...

We always try to crack the code on one channel first, and make it highly profitable and mostly automated before I move on to adding another channel.

Otherwise, you'll have multiple underperforming channels that you never truly get to work.

To Wrap It Up

We've tried over a dozen channels since we began our consultancy. These worked the best, bar none.

If you're selling high-ticket and want to have absurdly high margins, these organic methods can be game-changing.

Try them out, and let me know how they go! If you have questions or thoughts, just leave them in the comments. I'm always open to networking and meeting you all. Cheers!

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How to find patients as a surgeon?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 11:25 AM PST

Hi guys, I'm a surgeon that does a once off procedure. I'm wondering how to advertise outside of Adwords and Facebook?

I was considering local radio? And sending ads in the mail to local family doctors

Are there any other methods you'd recommend? Any other digital avenues im missing

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Is Black Friday good for entrepreneurship? Is there any opportunity outside of e-commerce?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 07:55 AM PST

It's Black Friday in the USA. Whether that means anything to you or not, I assume most people who are excited about the potential savings will primarily use e-commerce to snap up some major deals. But online shopping (Amazon, etc) can be incredibly deceiving, and sometimes even predatory in the way they display discounts, time-bound deals, and convincing copy to persuade people to buy more than they really need.

Sure, e-commerce entrepreneurs can take advantage of the 'buying spirit' and offer deals to their customers, but the current financial tools (like Mint) don't really help in the analyses and reflection aspect that is easier when shopping in person, but much needed in general financial wellbeing.

It's that reflection and analyses that can really help guide future decisions, even if the occasional impulse buy persists. This is what has guided my own entrepreneurial journey: Jules.

Rather than starting at the retailer level (all current financial tools), we are building something that inspects at the item level to help with categorization, better budgeting and reflection, for days like today.

Online shopping has dramatically accelerated this year, which has both made it easier and more convenient to get what you need, but also to get what you may not necessarily need too.

It's that fine line that days like Black Friday can exploit, and it's on us Entrepreneurs to do something about it.

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Starting a small recycling company

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 11:37 AM PST

Looking for any tips that are up to date. I have never started a business but I feel like trash produces it's self with any increase in any material market. It's going to need to be an infrastructure utility in years to come. How can I partner with local government to start a program? How would I figure out how much it would cost to start? Do I need an LLC before I do anything? Can I be a non profit? Any tips at all would be helpful.

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10 things to keep in mind in early days of your product or startup

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 02:06 AM PST

Do not go for subjective type questions in user surveys
Do not rely on data collected from immediate contacts
Do not build Facebook or Dropbox in a year
Do not go wide open looking for users
Do not invest in advertising
Do not raise funds
Do not overplan
Do not sweat
Do not hire
Do It!

Want to add something from your experience?

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Round 6: Who needs a free customized social media strategy that actually works?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 02:39 PM PST

It's been a while since I've done one of these. But back at it with another round! I have some time to take on assisting a handful of more Redditors with their social media and marketing strategies.

This time - I 'm looking for a challenge of helping an established business. I hate to put a number on it, but lets say $100K+ in revenue. Brick and mortar location is interesting too, especially with everything going on. I've done a lot of t-shirt and apparel companies, which isn't a bad thing at all. But there's plenty of info out there already for how to get started on social in that space.

I had a blast helping out some fellow Entrepreneurs on Reddit with their social media and marketing strategies. You guys are working on some really awesome businesses with some companies making 7 figures and some just getting started. So I'd love to offer another round of help - no cost, of course.

I've been running a social media marketing and management agency for just over three years now. I absolutely love what I'm doing and the clients I work with.

My approach is unique in that I have a sales and marketing background and utilize social media as a way to extend your brand to where consumers spend most of their time. It's not about sales messaging, it's about creating relationships and developing a community. I've worked with some very large multi-national brands on marketing campaigns as well as small companies like your local plumber in a full-time career capacity.

I'm looking to boost my portfolio of examples a bit on my agency. So here's my offer to you: I'll host you for a social strategy Zoom session where we can workshop some ideas. I'll do up to 10 in the coming weeks.

Different this time: Only people with an existing business that's actually generating revenue. The reason being is I've created these strategies and the companies never even get off the ground. If you and I seem to click, I might even be up for implementation and getting you started.

Reply or send me a DM if you're interested. Cheers!

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How do I distinguish between wanting to actually be an entrepreneur and simply liking the idea of being an entrepreneur?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 04:39 AM PST

I work full time and will be starting my own cleaning business soon. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Before I take this plunge, I want to make sure I'm doing it for the right reasons. I think there's a huge difference between wanting to be an entrepreneur and really wanting to do what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Are there any questions I can ask myself to make sure this is right for me before I commit my money, sanity, nights, weekends to this?

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Best consulting websites for small agencies?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 12:00 PM PST

Can anyone provide some good examples of small agency websites that look clean/professional and not self-made?

I'm working on building my consulting site for an agency I am going to be starting. I'm trying to avoid the "stock photo" website look/feel and also don't want to feel like it's just a 1 man shop with a mediocre site.

I'm looking to hire someone someone on upwork to build/edit, but I need to give some clear directions/examples.

Thanks

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Conducting Due Diligence on a US company

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 04:19 AM PST

Hi All,

I'm in the UK and trying to do due diligence on an individual claiming fairly substantial income from his US company. In the UK, information for registered companies is fairly easy to verify as the data is public. You can check company directors and their companies, financial history etc for free. (using sites like companycheck.co.uk, companieshouse, etc)

Does a similar US service exist? Is there a website that I may be able to use? Would hope to check both the director and companies. (length of time in operation, financial data, etc) Doesn't have to be in-depth, basic data would be fine.

Thanks in advance

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What basic math, accounting and finance concept should one understand very well for running a business?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 07:51 AM PST

I am looking forward to start a more traditional business. By traditional business, I mean something like a clothing store for men, a car rental business, a supermarket and so forth. What I want to know from the sub members is that what basic math and accounting concepts I must learn to operate a business or store smoothly?

I'm not talking about quant finance-level math concepts, but something that your everyday business owners know. The concepts that do not require you to have fancy STEM degrees or MBAs.

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Growth Hacking Software That Pays Users for Signing Up/Completing a Certain Action?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 11:28 AM PST

I just launched an online reviews site (https://courseranks.com) , and we're working on seeding the first reviews for all the listings we currently have.

2 Questions:

1) Does anyone know of a software that allows you to growth hack (pay $5 for a user to sign up or leave a review, then invite their friends to do the same thing, for example) - or would we need to build this from scratch?

2) If anyone has built anything similar, or knows someone who has, would love to be connected with them. Thanks!

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How do I find a specific type of client for my professional services?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 11:20 AM PST

I'm a civil engineer and I want to build a business that only designs decks and nothing else. Making the website and SEO content is easy, but beyond google ad-words, how do I find clients that are interested in this specific service?

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Launching web based SaaS this Monday - do you have any advice that isn't so well documented?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 11:01 AM PST

I've read plenty of articles and lists and blog posts. Just wondering if there is something you know that is not typically documented.

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What are debt options available to a solopreneur without a mortgage/tons of assets?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:57 AM PST

Just trying to get some feedback and alternative directions to start my reseach before continuing a conversation re a family friend loan.

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What I'm Building and Why.

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:56 AM PST

Full disclosure, I'm linking you to a medium post I wrote about my startup. But I'm looking to see what other entrepreneurs think of the idea. If this platform is something you see yourself or someone in your family using.. Let them know it's coming!

See the link below:

https://domgallo.medium.com/the-what-and-why-behind-forget-me-not-93f8ad957e79

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How you can reduce bounce rate from your webpage?

Posted: 26 Nov 2020 07:41 PM PST

Hi, recently we had a client who was struggling with bounce rate, we ended up helping them but we find this is the problem with almost 90% of the people, you invest heavily on Google / Facebook ads and then people come but they bounce off! Well I cannot give specific reason why people are bouncing off from your website but here is how you can reduce it

What is Bounce Rate? - When user leaves your website without visiting a second page.

Ways to reduce bounce rate?

Have complete content or information in your pages, like if you have an ecommerce store, provide your reviews, frequently asked questions and all the information a user may need while consuming the information. Because due to lack of information, please leave the website
Clickbait title - Avoid false advertisement, don't over commit about the content of the page, like don't project 60% off in your eCommerce store if you don't have that kind of discount available.
Avoid too many popups - User is there to consume the information, not to interact with your popups, avoid having too many popups
One Call to action - Website owner usually put multiple call to actions, which steals the focus of visitor and hence they bounce from the website
Have mobile friendly content - It simply does not mean that your website should be responsive, it should have best possible user experience for mobile users
Looks for ways to increase the speed of the website, unless your website is not serving fast. You are losing huge chunk of traffic
Badly presented content, having seo optimized content is one thing but serving content for the target audience is another. If your content is not aligned to the target audience, they are going to bounce.
Opening external links in the same tab can cause visitior to leave your website without realizing, always make sure that links which you are using to point outside your website should open in new tab not in the same tab.

If you need more examples or visuals, feel free to checkout the video YouTube Video

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I made an animated summary of "The lean Start Up" by Eric Ries. I hope this is useful to you.

Posted: 26 Nov 2020 09:00 PM PST

Link to video: https://youtu.be/j6QPZp--lJE

I release new videos often, if you're interested in subscribing here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1

If you'd prefer to read the script instead of watching the video, here it is:

Summary of the Lean Startup By Erick Reis

About The Author

Other than being the author of, 'The Lean Start-up', Erick Reis, an American entrepreneur and a blogger, is also the author of 'The Start-up way', a book that talks about modern entrepreneurial management.

The Book's Main Idea

The book's main goal is to help readers avoid the number one mistake that makes start-ups fail i.e. launching a product or a service without the entrepreneur knowing who the product's customer is and what those customers really want.

To quote the author:

"Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer's problem" Erick Reis

The Lean Start-up focuses on teaching readers how to better their start-up businesses by exposing them to a new way of thinking that is able to mitigate their risk going forward which automatically increases their likelihood of finding a product that sticks. The book does that through introducing the readers to a systematic and scientific method that enables them to get all the information they need to make fast and decisive decisions when starting a business.

"The ability to learn faster from customers is the essential competitive advantage that start-ups must possess"' Erick Reis

A Look at the Main Topics Discussed In the Book

Here is a taste of what to expect from the three phrases of the book.

First phase: VISION

In the book, Reis, through his experience, explains why start-ups fail. He tries to make readers understand that the battle for a successful start-up is first lost in the vision where entrepreneurs follow a conventional approach of starting a business; which dictates that immediately they get an idea and it has been approved by either their friends or family, the idea becomes legit and ready to be launched in the market.

According to the Lean Start-up, the conventional approach is wrong because it makes entrepreneurs launch start-ups based on untested assumptions, which increase the possibility of them creating a perfect product that nobody wants.

Reis says that the first goal of a start-up is to figure out the right thing to build, the thing that customers will want and will be willing to pay for as quickly as possible.

Under the topic of vision, Reis teaches the readers how to kick start a start-up the right way. He uses a super formula, which makes the reader better at starting a successful business. Here is a glimpse of the formula.

Step 1: The reader is taught how to come up with a user experience vision.
Step 2: The reader is taught how to identify critical assumptions on their idea, which determines the success of the start-up. Step 3: The reader is educated on how to experiment with critical assumptions. Here, Reis uses the Zappos example where he explains how Nick Swinmurn, the inventor of Zappos, came up with a successful business by simply experimenting with his assumption, 'people can buy shoes online' by first posting photos of shoes online to test customer demand. Step 4: The reader is taught how to build an MVP (minimum viable product)- A sample of the reader's product that highlights the main features of their idea but takes less time, effort and money to build, that they can use to test their idea with.

Second phase: STEER

This phase the book focuses on teaching the reader how to steer his/her start-up business through using the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop formula.

In the book, Reis says the lean start-up methodology is based on a cycle of rinse and repeat; the build-measure-learn. What the reader is taught from the steer phase is how:

He can identify the leap of faith assumption from his idea. He can use various methods to test his assumptions. He can release his product to the market. He can learn to define his baseline metric of judging the performance of his product to the market and how he can use it to measure his products success or failure. He can assess his products results and know whether to pivot (adjust to a better one) or persevere (retain the idea).

Third phase: ACCELERATE

In the book, Reis uses the vision and steer phases to set a foundation for the reader's last move to take to have a successful start-up, which is acceleration. In acceleration, Reis teaches the reader how he can move past the feedback loop faster and go on to set the innovation and growth ball rolling.

Under accelerate Reis focuses on teaching the reader the following topics.

BATCH- This part explains how the reader can use a small batch approach to get his product going as soon as possible. The author goes on to say that smaller batches work better for lean start-ups because they enable the entrepreneur to detect a problem early as well as enable him to get quick feedback from a customer. GROW- In this section, the author teaches readers how to identify and concentrate on the right growth strategy for their start-ups. To illustrate how important a right growth strategy is, Reis gives an example of how Sabeer Bhatia, the owner of Hotmail, grew the business by figuring out her best growth strategy, which was adding signature that carried the message, "Get your free e-mail at Hotmail" onto every outgoing email. ADAPT- This part teaches the reader how to develop an adaptive culture using the 'five why's system'. INNOVATE- This part teaches readers how to set up their start-up as an innovative company that has an organized way of producing new-innovations and start-ups.

Conclusion

The big take away from the book, 'The Lean Start-up' is; entrepreneurship is management so for the reader to succeed in it, they need to manage their start-up business as the institution it is and avoid jumping head first into ideas.

I hope that was useful, have a great day!

I release new videos often, if you're interested in subscribing here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1

I've made over 60 summaries of the best self improvement books, the links are below.

Full playlist of them all here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOImyOGN9UE&list=PLaNTB6oQAa0AYuul0tqUscg1ZLj_arZga

Here are the links:

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Professional

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:13 AM PST

I'm a Corporate reader with executive skills looking for an executive position to gain professional work experience. Am self educated but extensively, am a hard worker, and am willing to give a company my all(soul) for a few years.. Any ideas on where to start looking for a complimentary match(business attorneys etc.)??

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Are you estimating or selling?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 12:30 PM PST

Customer: "I would like my walls painted"

Estimating: Ok, that sounds good I'll quote you for that

Selling: I think it would be best if you incorporated the trim and doors too, it would make the walls pop a lot more. Would you like to see a quote on that as well?

Customer: "We'll think about it and get back to you"

Estimating: Ok, no problem thank you

Selling: I can understand that, but in most cases when I hear that it usually has to do with our price, may I ask, what was your expectation?

Customer: "I can't decide on colors…"

Estimating: Ok, when you figure it out, let us know

Selling: "No problem! We actually provide our customers with a free 1-hour color consultation with a local decorator at no charge!"

See the difference? Stop estimating, start selling! Obviously, fit in whatever trade you offer inside of the examples, but if you look - the difference boils down to two things: Tonality and Questions. That's it! So, next time you're doing an "estimate" switch gears and start "selling" I did a podcast episode on this, that can be viewed here where I dive deep into this concept! I call it the 5/95 rule.

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Hey, my friend started a small plant business. I’m helping her with a few things. Let us know how the website it and if you have any ideas for how she can grow (no pun intended). Any ideas or feedback are welcomed. Thanks

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 08:22 AM PST

City's Edge Botanicals www.shopcitysedge.com

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Posted: 27 Nov 2020 08:20 AM PST

You aren't a lawyer. You can't give me legal advice. But I am curious to hear your thoughts and opinions on this matter.

I was thinking of making a list of a few Instagram influencers who's photos I find appealing and turning those photos into black and white sketches for a coloring book which might be enjoyed by a number of that influencer's followers.. Ideally, of course, I will get the written consent of the influencer and even give them a significant portion of any profit. But after reading a few articles and court case decisions, I'm wondering if that would even be necessary to get a start at it.

It could be argued that their likeness in a coloring book is transformative from the original post and the transformative argument has been key in some of the cases I read about. And given that the purpose of the coloring book is for others to make art out of it, it becomes even more transformative and can be seen as artwork itself. A famous artist sold slightly transformative screenshots of people's Instagram posts and made tens of thousands of dollars at a gallery show.

The thing that I feel like could make it illegal to do that in the beginning is the "commercial use" part. I would be intending to sell the coloring books. Though, if it I only printed a limited amount of the coloring books, I think, after reading one court case decision, that this would support the argument that it is art and is protected under the first amendment. Another thing that I think may help get around the "commercial advantage" aspect of it is if I automatically hold a percentage of the profits to be claimed by the influencer at any time. If I reach out to them letting them know that they can claim 51% of the profits, and I do this before I begin selling, then perhaps that would weaken any argument that I am doing it for a commercial advantage? Commercial advantage over who? The person who's likeness I am using? If that were the case then they wouldn't be receiving 51% of the profits. But I'm not sure that argument alone would hold up in court.

I will consult with a lawyer before pursuing this regardless of which path I take. Understand, I would not be wanting to do this to be unfair to the influencer. I would fully desire for a significant percentage of profits to go to the influencer. I am considering this calculated risk because it would provide leverage in making this successful. If I fully rely on getting written consent, then it is easier for an influencer to say 'no', and much more difficult for me to begin. However, if I can make a limited amount of them for purposes of creating art without their written consent, then I can easily make a start at this and the influencer would be more likely to want in on any money being made.

What are your thoughts on taking a calculated risk such as this?

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What apps are there for logging client information?

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 08:12 AM PST

Hey guys,

I have a business that requires clients to buy packages. Currently, I'm using Word documents to keep track of when these sessions occur (time and date), however I personally feel it's clunky and easy to forget to update.

Let's say I wanted to just load up an app, click on a client name, and from there I could hit some sort of "Session Complete" button, which would log the time of completion and deduct a session from their package. Is there something like this available on Android?

Thank you all again.

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Modeling the Obligatory Late November Sale in the Creator Economy

Posted: 27 Nov 2020 07:30 AM PST

Having difficulty embedding images in the post, if you want to see the payoff matricies read the version on my website: https://philipkiely.com/essays/november_sale.html

Black Friday and associated late November sales are collectively a neutron star warping the gravitational field of the annual consumer spending cycle. The story of how Black Friday came to be is fairly simple: a focal point for sales gaining momentum year after year. While Black Friday started with American big box retailers offering discounts to consumers shopping primarily for Christmas gifts, it has turned into a cultural event in itself and has, in recent years, even come to the creator economy.

Depending on your model, this can be a good or a bad thing. Sure, now-defunct department stores offering discounts on televisions a decade ago shouldn't be the basis for deciding how to price my information products. But, everyone choosing to run a discount at the same time of year is a great reason for me to choose to discount my own products. So, let's talk about the Obligatory Late November Sale (OLNS).

I've worked retail on holidays; I have reason to dislike Black Friday. But, I've also walked through midwestern malls with friends from Russia, Iran, and Germany, all staying over for Thanksgiving, spectating and indulging in the excesses of the America they have seen on TV. Rather than trying to develop moral arguments for and against Black Friday as a whole, I'm tackling the much easier task of developing one game theoretic model for and one against the OLNS specifically applied to the online creator economy.

If you have no background in Game Theory, spend a few minutes here or just look up terms that are unfamiliar as you go.

All models are wrong, some are useful. The usefulness of a model starts with the underlying assumptions. There are two important simplifying assumptions that I am making in the following models. The first is that offering a OLNS does not materially increase the creator's reach. This assumption is based on the difficulty of standing out from the noise of everyone offering some sort of Black Friday discount. Thus, another necessary assumption is that some percent of a creator's audience has not yet bought their product.

The second simplification is that I am playing fast and loose with the idea of a "player" in game theory. Game theorists have developed more sophisticated models than the ones presented below for modeling one player's interactions against a prevailing norm rather than a single other player. However, by making my model more wrong (using a two-person creator economy), I can actually make it more widely useful by requiring less econ background to understand the model.

Model 1: Prisoner's Dilemma

Thesis: Creators don't want to run discounts because they lose out on margin.

If creators don't want to run discounts, running a OLNS is a prisoner's dilemma. Let's take two creators, Alice and Bob, who each sell a similar information product in the same market. Their information products each costs 33 dollars, each Alice and Bob is considering a 1/3 discount to 22 dollars.

If neither Alice nor Bob runs a discount, each will sell 10 units, the same as they sell every week. However, if Alice runs a discount, she will attract 6 more customers. Let's say that 3 are new participants in the market and the other 3 would have bought from Bob but for the discount. The same thing happens in reverse if Bob runs a discount. However, if they both run discounts, they each attract 3 new customers, but neither steals the others' customers. It is important to note here that I am NOT modeling a discount as a zero-sum game, which would be inappropriate for a large market like the creator economy.

Here is a payoff matrix of revenue for that situation:

PD Payoff Matrix

Alice and Bob both have a dominant strategy of running a discount, but both will end up with less revenue than if neither had discounted.

Astute readers may note that these numbers, which are totally fabricated, could be altered such that running a discount is a good deal for both parties. Why not conjure up more customers attracted by the discount?

Model 2: Assurance

Thesis: Creators want to run discounts to generate marginal sales.

Let's slightly adjust the above model: regardless of whether Alice or Bob runs the discount alone or at the same time, if one runs a discount, they get 6 additional customers, and these are all new customers and not from each others' customer bases. The model is a bit different now, but they have the same dominant strategy: run the sale regardless of the others' action.

A1 Payoff Matrix

However, this model doesn't yet answer why it is strictly beneficial for creators to run discounts at the same time. Well, consumer psychology is a tricky thing. For information products, generally priced at a premium (charge more!) and targeted at professional audiences, frequent discounts can undermine the credibility of the price and product. Price uncertainty can delay purchases, after all, if the product is randomly discounted, why not wait? After running random sales, I've even had customers making a purchase a day before or after write to me asking to get refunded down to the sale price. People don't like to feel like they missed out.

So, if running a sale, especially a major discount that really attracts the marginal customer, is risky, and doing it too often cuts into your margin and credibility, then you want to run such sales infrequently but predictably. Thus, the Obligatory Late November Sale actually represents a wonderful opportunity! You can run your deep discount and customers are expecting it. Many creators and larger businesses participating isolates you from most backlash, after all, it is on the customer if they didn't see it coming or they missed it. Customers unwilling to pay full price will wait for a known date, while customers paying full price ahead of time will know that they could have waited and are choosing not to.

Let R be the reputation hit from having a random sale. Then, for Alice and Bob, the assurance model of the OLNS is:

PD Payoff Matrix

Running a sale at the same time gives both creators extra revenue without the reputation hit.

Coordinating a sale between every creator would be very difficult. Assurance models have the idea of focal points, so everyone who knows the payoffs and participants could come up with the same focal point without communicating. Black Friday is, as I stated at the beginning, a neutron star of a focal point, making it easy for creators everywhere to run a sale at the same time.

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Breaking News

Investing

Friday, November 27, 2020

Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (November 27, 2020) Entrepreneur

Accomplishments and Lesson Learned Friday! - (November 27, 2020) Entrepreneur

Some stats

My theory why it worked

Key takeaway

Top Performing Channel: Facebook Organic

Second Best Performing Channel: Linkedin Organic

Supplemental Channel: Referrals & Partnerships

Important Note

To Wrap It Up

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