The Entrepreneur / Business Owner's / Self Employed Lounge

I see a lot of guys that are in the beginner phase reading business books.

My advice if you are first starting is, don't.

Instead, start making a list of business models, and start finding information relating specifically to those business models.

Specific information for a specific business model is what you need (examples of a business model are a Facebook ads consultant/agency, an e commerce store owner, a dog walker etc.).

Once you have researched a few different business models, narrow your choice down to one or two - and start going deeper into them.

The next step after that is to get your first client or first bit of business (start small) and go from there.

You can get lost for months and years reading stuff that is too general when you first start. Instead, go specific.

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(12-25-2018 10:26 PM)fktax Wrote:  

(12-25-2018 01:52 PM)Praetor Lupus Wrote:  I'm going to hit the affiliate marketing and freelance copywriting hard in 2019. I don't want another job unless I absolutely have to get one.

What does this involve? Building content websites and earning income from businesses like Amazon and Ebay?

Sort of, but think driving traffic to pages advertising Clickbank offers.

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Guys, I tried searching for this on here but no luck.

Anyone recommend an easy way to send money from China to the United Kingdom without having to pay fees or at least limited ones.

I am talking about transactions between £200-1000.

Any help would be appreciated.

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(01-10-2019 06:01 AM)Constitution45 Wrote:  Guys, I tried searching for this on here but no luck.

Anyone recommend an easy way to send money from China to the United Kingdom without having to pay fees or at least limited ones.

I am talking about transactions between £200-1000.

Any help would be appreciated.

If you can use apps then maybe this list might help:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best...sfer-apps/

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I went "Self Employed" a few months ago.
It is a small family owned company, which is used by my parents for consulting (we do tech consulting for various entities). My father has asked me in the past to join, but I felt I needed to have better skills and network for this to happen.

I'm cashing unemployment checks (as I'm eligible) and started bringing money to the company from "day 1". The main problem so far is "buyers credit" (in B2B you get payed here within 30 to 90 days from the date you send the bill, which is at the end of the month you worked).
I still have FYF (F*&k You Fund), so money is less of an issue.

In the first 4 months I found myself having a lot of spare time. I did other things (read tons of books), but also did BizDev activities. Last month I secured a 6-month consulting gig that would my total H1/2019 revenues to 100K$.
Sounds good, right?

However, I found myself in a "time shortage" situation. I needed ~20% more work time to be able to deal with all my projects. I was starting to feel the pressure - I lost my will to approach girls, was constantly "fearing" phone calls and almost decided to "throw back the big fish". I also had a crisis in one of my first projects that was semi-attributed to me. That sure did not help. I also forsaken any thoughts of business development.

Then it hit me. I'm not using the right attitude.

Told myself, that I need to invest sometime to catch up, and if it doesn't work I can be honest with myself that I actually tried. Freed last weekend and worked through it. Took a break for my plates (currently spinning 2 mLTRs) but put in something like 16 hours on it (Friday and Saturday combined). Started using alarm clock set to 6:15AM and engaged work from 7:00AM onward.

It did the trick.

The weekend emails, the early and late emails proved to the new customer that I was making progress. I also have seemed to over estimate what I needed to do. Now I'm done with the first stage. Moving on next week to the second. Customer trust improved and no one is thinking about letting me go. I also (based on advise) came over more to be noticed (even if it was for 1 hour) - driving 45 minutes each direction.
As per the crisis, it was resolved and the blame was shifted from me to a "more accurate place".

Bad times are over. For now.
I have more confidence that I can succeed. I may not, but only time will tell.

Moral of the story:
Don't give up just yet. You might be able to push through it.
And - optics is important. Keep that in mind.

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(01-10-2019 09:15 AM)TheMaleBrain Wrote:  I went "Self Employed" a few months ago.
It is a small family owned company, which is used by my parents for consulting (we do tech consulting for various entities). My father has asked me in the past to join, but I felt I needed to have better skills and network for this to happen.

I'm cashing unemployment checks (as I'm eligible) and started bringing money to the company from "day 1". The main problem so far is "buyers credit" (in B2B you get payed here within 30 to 90 days from the date you send the bill, which is at the end of the month you worked).
I still have FYF (F*&k You Fund), so money is less of an issue.

In the first 4 months I found myself having a lot of spare time. I did other things (read tons of books), but also did BizDev activities. Last month I secured a 6-month consulting gig that would my total H1/2019 revenues to 100K$.
Sounds good, right?

However, I found myself in a "time shortage" situation. I needed ~20% more work time to be able to deal with all my projects. I was starting to feel the pressure - I lost my will to approach girls, was constantly "fearing" phone calls and almost decided to "throw back the big fish". I also had a crisis in one of my first projects that was semi-attributed to me. That sure did not help. I also forsaken any thoughts of business development.

Then it hit me. I'm not using the right attitude.

Told myself, that I need to invest sometime to catch up, and if it doesn't work I can be honest with myself that I actually tried. Freed last weekend and worked through it. Took a break for my plates (currently spinning 2 mLTRs) but put in something like 16 hours on it (Friday and Saturday combined). Started using alarm clock set to 6:15AM and engaged work from 7:00AM onward.

It did the trick.

The weekend emails, the early and late emails proved to the new customer that I was making progress. I also have seemed to over estimate what I needed to do. Now I'm done with the first stage. Moving on next week to the second. Customer trust improved and no one is thinking about letting me go. I also (based on advise) came over more to be noticed (even if it was for 1 hour) - driving 45 minutes each direction.
As per the crisis, it was resolved and the blame was shifted from me to a "more accurate place".

Bad times are over. For now.
I have more confidence that I can succeed. I may not, but only time will tell.

Moral of the story:
Don't give up just yet. You might be able to push through it.
And - optics is important. Keep that in mind.

I know exactly what you mean. The initial resistance is the hardest to overcome. But once you're 'in the zone' then that's the 20% of effort that provides 80% of gain.

I've had a good start to the year. Took the chance while the weather was good to do a large job with three guys and four machines. Reckon I've made about £5-6k profit this week after wages, diesel and machine costs due mainly to working smart.

But yet again I am still on site all the time making sure everything runs as it should...

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Is there someone working here with Instragram influencers to promote their online e-commerce business? I paid now 80 dollar for an IG influencer in my niche with over 100 k followers. I'd checked her conversion rate and checked whether she has real followers. What more can I do? I can't imagine it will be profitable working with IG influencers. Someone who has experience with this? Almost all of them only accept a fixed price, I offered a % of the sales but they almost all refuse.

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(01-10-2019 03:05 PM)SpursFan741 Wrote:  Is there someone working here with Instragram influencers to promote their online e-commerce business? I paid now 80 dollar for an IG influencer in my niche with over 100 k followers. I'd checked her conversion rate and checked whether she has real followers. What more can I do? I can't imagine it will be profitable working with IG influencers. Someone who has experience with this? Almost all of them only accept a fixed price, I offered a % of the sales but they almost all refuse.

You can check their comments...if it is usually is from a comment group with other like minded people not from actual potential customers then it is a waste of money...I have also offered sales commission on actual sales via a coupon code but most also refuse.

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(01-10-2019 05:05 PM)rishboy77 Wrote:  

(01-10-2019 03:05 PM)SpursFan741 Wrote:  Is there someone working here with Instragram influencers to promote their online e-commerce business? I paid now 80 dollar for an IG influencer in my niche with over 100 k followers. I'd checked her conversion rate and checked whether she has real followers. What more can I do? I can't imagine it will be profitable working with IG influencers. Someone who has experience with this? Almost all of them only accept a fixed price, I offered a % of the sales but they almost all refuse.

You can check their comments...if it is usually is from a comment group with other like minded people not from actual potential customers then it is a waste of money...I have also offered sales commission on actual sales via a coupon code but most also refuse.

About 60% of the comments are from fellow influencers / bloggers , the other 40% seem to be normal people. But I still paid 80$ for 1 day story ( she has about 110k followers). My first and last time I work with IG influencers I think

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I waited too long to have a real discussion (and make an offer) to buy out one of my partners so another quarter passed and now the business is worth more money.

Offered what I should have offered last quarter.

Didn't hear back.

Gave him time.

Didn't hear back.

Reached back out, he immediately countered with a number 25% higher than I wanted to pay and said he wanted to ask more but in the interest of moving forward he was making this offer. Fuck.

Thought about it. Frustrated. Admitted to myself it's my fault. Recognized that it's still really good value (worth 1.5 to 3 times what I'd be paying).

Bit the bullet, swallowed my pride and shook hands on it. Only minutes after I felt a sense of relief, because I made the right decision. The decision I actually could make, not the one I COULD HAVE made. No new partners and I still am getting a solidly worthwhile investment. Win-win.

Drawing up the paperwork and then we'll celebrate.

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(01-10-2019 09:15 AM)TheMaleBrain Wrote:  I went "Self Employed" a few months ago.
It is a small family owned company, which is used by my parents for consulting (we do tech consulting for various entities). My father has asked me in the past to join, but I felt I needed to have better skills and network for this to happen.

I'm cashing unemployment checks (as I'm eligible) and started bringing money to the company from "day 1". The main problem so far is "buyers credit" (in B2B you get payed here within 30 to 90 days from the date you send the bill, which is at the end of the month you worked).
I still have FYF (F*&k You Fund), so money is less of an issue.

In the first 4 months I found myself having a lot of spare time. I did other things (read tons of books), but also did BizDev activities. Last month I secured a 6-month consulting gig that would my total H1/2019 revenues to 100K$.
Sounds good, right?

However, I found myself in a "time shortage" situation. I needed ~20% more work time to be able to deal with all my projects. I was starting to feel the pressure - I lost my will to approach girls, was constantly "fearing" phone calls and almost decided to "throw back the big fish". I also had a crisis in one of my first projects that was semi-attributed to me. That sure did not help. I also forsaken any thoughts of business development.

Then it hit me. I'm not using the right attitude.

Told myself, that I need to invest sometime to catch up, and if it doesn't work I can be honest with myself that I actually tried. Freed last weekend and worked through it. Took a break for my plates (currently spinning 2 mLTRs) but put in something like 16 hours on it (Friday and Saturday combined). Started using alarm clock set to 6:15AM and engaged work from 7:00AM onward.

It did the trick.

The weekend emails, the early and late emails proved to the new customer that I was making progress. I also have seemed to over estimate what I needed to do. Now I'm done with the first stage. Moving on next week to the second. Customer trust improved and no one is thinking about letting me go. I also (based on advise) came over more to be noticed (even if it was for 1 hour) - driving 45 minutes each direction.
As per the crisis, it was resolved and the blame was shifted from me to a "more accurate place".

Bad times are over. For now.
I have more confidence that I can succeed. I may not, but only time will tell.

Moral of the story:
Don't give up just yet. You might be able to push through it.
And - optics is important. Keep that in mind.

It sounds like the 'big thing' is to make sure you are communicating with the customers so they know what is going on, even if you are having problems. A constant complaint from almost all customers, no matter the industry, is that their vendor goes silent and they have no idea if any work is being done or not. Customers will understand and forgive if there are problems at times, AS LONG AS THEY ARE TOLD WHAT IS GOING ON. A lot of times no one really knows how long something should take because it is the first time it is being done, or something unexpected came up that no one knew about or could have foreseen.

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This is super solid advice!

I also had a lot of trouble with deliveries due to the holiday season but kept customers in the loop and it helped greatly.

People are a lot more understanding if you are up front about what’s going on

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(01-10-2019 07:51 PM)EvanWilson Wrote:  

(01-10-2019 09:15 AM)TheMaleBrain Wrote:  I went "Self Employed" a few months ago.
It is a small family owned company, which is used by my parents for consulting (we do tech consulting for various entities). My father has asked me in the past to join, but I felt I needed to have better skills and network for this to happen.

I'm cashing unemployment checks (as I'm eligible) and started bringing money to the company from "day 1". The main problem so far is "buyers credit" (in B2B you get payed here within 30 to 90 days from the date you send the bill, which is at the end of the month you worked).
I still have FYF (F*&k You Fund), so money is less of an issue.

In the first 4 months I found myself having a lot of spare time. I did other things (read tons of books), but also did BizDev activities. Last month I secured a 6-month consulting gig that would my total H1/2019 revenues to 100K$.
Sounds good, right?

However, I found myself in a "time shortage" situation. I needed ~20% more work time to be able to deal with all my projects. I was starting to feel the pressure - I lost my will to approach girls, was constantly "fearing" phone calls and almost decided to "throw back the big fish". I also had a crisis in one of my first projects that was semi-attributed to me. That sure did not help. I also forsaken any thoughts of business development.

Then it hit me. I'm not using the right attitude.

Told myself, that I need to invest sometime to catch up, and if it doesn't work I can be honest with myself that I actually tried. Freed last weekend and worked through it. Took a break for my plates (currently spinning 2 mLTRs) but put in something like 16 hours on it (Friday and Saturday combined). Started using alarm clock set to 6:15AM and engaged work from 7:00AM onward.

It did the trick.

The weekend emails, the early and late emails proved to the new customer that I was making progress. I also have seemed to over estimate what I needed to do. Now I'm done with the first stage. Moving on next week to the second. Customer trust improved and no one is thinking about letting me go. I also (based on advise) came over more to be noticed (even if it was for 1 hour) - driving 45 minutes each direction.
As per the crisis, it was resolved and the blame was shifted from me to a "more accurate place".

Bad times are over. For now.
I have more confidence that I can succeed. I may not, but only time will tell.

Moral of the story:
Don't give up just yet. You might be able to push through it.
And - optics is important. Keep that in mind.

It sounds like the 'big thing' is to make sure you are communicating with the customers so they know what is going on, even if you are having problems. A constant complaint from almost all customers, no matter the industry, is that their vendor goes silent and they have no idea if any work is being done or not. Customers will understand and forgive if there are problems at times, AS LONG AS THEY ARE TOLD WHAT IS GOING ON. A lot of times no one really knows how long something should take because it is the first time it is being done, or something unexpected came up that no one knew about or could have foreseen.

The thing is, I was communicating on a 2-3 times a week basis. Moved to almost every day.
Sounds funny, but true.

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(01-10-2019 07:51 PM)EvanWilson Wrote:  

(01-10-2019 09:15 AM)TheMaleBrain Wrote:  I went "Self Employed" a few months ago.
It is a small family owned company, which is used by my parents for consulting (we do tech consulting for various entities). My father has asked me in the past to join, but I felt I needed to have better skills and network for this to happen.

I'm cashing unemployment checks (as I'm eligible) and started bringing money to the company from "day 1". The main problem so far is "buyers credit" (in B2B you get payed here within 30 to 90 days from the date you send the bill, which is at the end of the month you worked).
I still have FYF (F*&k You Fund), so money is less of an issue.

In the first 4 months I found myself having a lot of spare time. I did other things (read tons of books), but also did BizDev activities. Last month I secured a 6-month consulting gig that would my total H1/2019 revenues to 100K$.
Sounds good, right?

However, I found myself in a "time shortage" situation. I needed ~20% more work time to be able to deal with all my projects. I was starting to feel the pressure - I lost my will to approach girls, was constantly "fearing" phone calls and almost decided to "throw back the big fish". I also had a crisis in one of my first projects that was semi-attributed to me. That sure did not help. I also forsaken any thoughts of business development.

Then it hit me. I'm not using the right attitude.

Told myself, that I need to invest sometime to catch up, and if it doesn't work I can be honest with myself that I actually tried. Freed last weekend and worked through it. Took a break for my plates (currently spinning 2 mLTRs) but put in something like 16 hours on it (Friday and Saturday combined). Started using alarm clock set to 6:15AM and engaged work from 7:00AM onward.

It did the trick.

The weekend emails, the early and late emails proved to the new customer that I was making progress. I also have seemed to over estimate what I needed to do. Now I'm done with the first stage. Moving on next week to the second. Customer trust improved and no one is thinking about letting me go. I also (based on advise) came over more to be noticed (even if it was for 1 hour) - driving 45 minutes each direction.
As per the crisis, it was resolved and the blame was shifted from me to a "more accurate place".

Bad times are over. For now.
I have more confidence that I can succeed. I may not, but only time will tell.

Moral of the story:
Don't give up just yet. You might be able to push through it.
And - optics is important. Keep that in mind.

It sounds like the 'big thing' is to make sure you are communicating with the customers so they know what is going on, even if you are having problems. A constant complaint from almost all customers, no matter the industry, is that their vendor goes silent and they have no idea if any work is being done or not. Customers will understand and forgive if there are problems at times, AS LONG AS THEY ARE TOLD WHAT IS GOING ON. A lot of times no one really knows how long something should take because it is the first time it is being done, or something unexpected came up that no one knew about or could have foreseen.

Solid advice. Someone wiser than me once said an informer customer isn’t necessarily happier but at least he knows what is happenings.

In the modern world soy types happily bury their heads in the sand than risk confrontation.

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As it comes to POD, how do you guys approach copyright?
I found a topic, that could is total niche in my country (I want to start local eshop) and stuff I would like to print is basically whatever I google and find interesting. I am talking about posters and or printing on painting cloth to hang on the wall at home.

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How do you guys maintain the energy to keep working on a business while working full-time?

About a month ago I launched a service-based business and have so far landed six clients, but I'm starting to feel burnt out already. I'm working ~70 hour weeks, which entails the 9-5.30 job, and then working a couple of hours before and after work, during my work lunch break, and most of the weekend.

My worry is that if I don't keep grinding away I'll never earn enough from the business so that I can quit my job and work on it full-time. How can I push through when all I want to do is throw in the towel everyday?

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(02-25-2019 11:54 AM)RedKurrant Wrote:  How do you guys maintain the energy to keep working on a business while working full-time?

About a month ago I launched a service-based business and have so far landed six clients, but I'm starting to feel burnt out already. I'm working ~70 hour weeks, which entails the 9-5.30 job, and then working a couple of hours before and after work, during my work lunch break, and most of the weekend.

My worry is that if I don't keep grinding away I'll never earn enough from the business so that I can quit my job and work on it full-time. How can I push through when all I want to do is throw in the towel everyday?

Set a time limit for working on your business while on the job. 6 months maybe. If after 6 months your business isn’t getting anywhere, either the business idea isn’t profitable or you simply haven’t put enough into it. At 6 months, you will know which is which.

Then you’ll have to decide whether to quit your job to focus on your business full time, or forget about it and try a different business idea later.

The idea is to not let yourself burn both ends of the candle forever, because as you say, that leads to burnout. So set a time limit on that.

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Just been brainstorming a jv with someone today that as far as I can see doesn’t already exist in the market. I can feel a new project coming on..

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(02-25-2019 07:21 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

(02-25-2019 11:54 AM)RedKurrant Wrote:  How do you guys maintain the energy to keep working on a business while working full-time?

About a month ago I launched a service-based business and have so far landed six clients, but I'm starting to feel burnt out already. I'm working ~70 hour weeks, which entails the 9-5.30 job, and then working a couple of hours before and after work, during my work lunch break, and most of the weekend.

My worry is that if I don't keep grinding away I'll never earn enough from the business so that I can quit my job and work on it full-time. How can I push through when all I want to do is throw in the towel everyday?

Set a time limit for working on your business while on the job. 6 months maybe. If after 6 months your business isn’t getting anywhere, either the business idea isn’t profitable or you simply haven’t put enough into it. At 6 months, you will know which is which.

Then you’ll have to decide whether to quit your job to focus on your business full time, or forget about it and try a different business idea later.

The idea is to not let yourself burn both ends of the candle forever, because as you say, that leads to burnout. So set a time limit on that.

I would advise the same. Set a date (say 6 months in the future) on which date you take the plunge.

- I would suggest you strategically use your annual and sick leave within these 6 months (take as many days off as you can, say every other Friday or so).

- Amend your eating habits to be free during lunch (I honestly do this). I eat nuts, dried fruits and bars up to 1.200 calories every day for lunch.

- If I were you during these months I would focus on testing if I can win clients on your own project. Not so much on the actual money earned. If you are using advertisements online, as long as you see its working then feel free to stop the ads for the last 1-2 months of your 6-month window. Use your money in exchange for your time as much as possible (eg outsource part of the work while you hold both jobs if possible).

- Force yourself to take breaks otherwise you will lose all willpower to focus on your project.

Tiredness works exponentially, unfortunately. I'm in a similar situation and its driving me crazy.

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Feeling a bit drained with a cold today. Worked a day yesterday with one of my guys and he's put his back out a bit. He turns up today and asks if he can have a day off. I'm fine with that as I feel pretty rubbish, and he does work hard. I'll always let him make the hours up at a weekend if he wants. However, I have a guy working currently who's self employed. Now I have to tell him there's no work today wither as it's a two man job and I have other things I need to be doing.

I feel slightly bad about this, but truth to be told, I've kind of accepted that to get ahead in todays climate you have to be harsh. To get ahead you have to screw people. The other guy is an ok-ish worker, but I'd never give him a full time salaried job. Moreover, should I feel bad when he's a year older than me and has spent his twenties doing (and dealing) every drug under the sun and still lives with his mum? I've made some big sacrifices to get to where I am. I'm going to treat him as disposable, which truth to be told he is. He'll miss the day from his pay packet, but if he was less of a waster he'd be able to find a decent full time job.

Being self employed cuts both ways. He texted me at 7:45 in the morning one day last week and said he was taking the day off. Despite having work booked I didn't get stressy- I accepted that as my part of the bargain. My business is flexible anyhow. I bet he kicks off today though.

In case you're wondering, self employed labour is fairly common in the UK, especially in the landscape and construction sectors. I was a 'subbie' myself for a couple of years as I worked to buy all the tools I needed, pay rent and make ends meet. I used to work from 5am till 10pm some days. This guy is trying to find his own 'private' jobs, but I'll wager a pound to a silver pig that he doesn't and just goes back to dealing.

Previously I've been guilty of not being hard enough, and being too tolerant of wasters. Not any more. I'll use him (in both senses of the word) to make me make money.

On the flip side, I have a female friend who's boyfriend is a great worker and good guy all round. They've just bought a house together. I'm making moves to poach him from his current employer. It's a big responsibility, but I know he'd make me money and ease my stress levels, and there's no way I'd lay him off for odd days.

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(03-05-2019 03:07 AM)roberto Wrote:  Feeling a bit drained with a cold today. Worked a day yesterday with one of my guys and he's put his back out a bit. He turns up today and asks if he can have a day off. I'm fine with that as I feel pretty rubbish, and he does work hard. I'll always let him make the hours up at a weekend if he wants. However, I have a guy working currently who's self employed. Now I have to tell him there's no work today wither as it's a two man job and I have other things I need to be doing.

I feel slightly bad about this, but truth to be told, I've kind of accepted that to get ahead in todays climate you have to be harsh. To get ahead you have to screw people. The other guy is an ok-ish worker, but I'd never give him a full time salaried job. Moreover, should I feel bad when he's a year older than me and has spent his twenties doing (and dealing) every drug under the sun and still lives with his mum? I've made some big sacrifices to get to where I am. I'm going to treat him as disposable, which truth to be told he is. He'll miss the day from his pay packet, but if he was less of a waster he'd be able to find a decent full time job.

Being self employed cuts both ways. He texted me at 7:45 in the morning one day last week and said he was taking the day off. Despite having work booked I didn't get stressy- I accepted that as my part of the bargain. My business is flexible anyhow. I bet he kicks off today though.

In case you're wondering, self employed labour is fairly common in the UK, especially in the landscape and construction sectors. I was a 'subbie' myself for a couple of years as I worked to buy all the tools I needed, pay rent and make ends meet. I used to work from 5am till 10pm some days. This guy is trying to find his own 'private' jobs, but I'll wager a pound to a silver pig that he doesn't and just goes back to dealing.

Previously I've been guilty of not being hard enough, and being too tolerant of wasters. Not any more. I'll use him (in both senses of the word) to make me make money.

On the flip side, I have a female friend who's boyfriend is a great worker and good guy all round. They've just bought a house together. I'm making moves to poach him from his current employer. It's a big responsibility, but I know he'd make me money and ease my stress levels, and there's no way I'd lay him off for odd days.

I hear this. There are winners and losers in life. There are more losers than winners. Never forget you are different from everyone else and it’s often a lonely place.

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Can anyone recommend some high end entrepreneur FB groups/forums I could join to promote copywriting services (VSL scripts, sales pages etc).

I've just invested in a mentorship with a top copywriter and want to take on clients that appreciate the value.

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My advice is to go on Instagram and checkout certain hashtags. Such as #selfmade #entreprenuer #businessman etc. People that do that are usually just starting out trying to build their social media presence and typically are easy targets.

Comment sections on business pages accounts are also good, Valuetaiment has a very nice following.

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Anyone have advice on landing (non-paid) speaking gigs or getting in front of large audiences?

I'm something of an expert on a rather niche subject (directly related to my work), and aside from word-of-mouth recommendations my best way to acquire new clients has been presentations/speaking gigs. I spend half an hour or so teaching about my field and almost always have a few people approach me afterward, many of whom soon become clients.

I've done local rotary clubs, alumni groups, informal university lectures, etc., again mostly via word-of-mouth (as in a current client recommends me to their group). I seem to have maxed out my personal network though, and I'm trying to figure out how to go about advertising myself as a speaker. I don't charge anything to speak, it's all simply an opportunity to educate attendees about my field and allow them to approach me if interested in my services.

Any recommendations? My first thought was to create a list of local organizations likely to want speakers (such as rotary clubs) and basically cold call to offer my services, but I'm interested if anyone here has dealt with something similar.

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(03-11-2019 09:55 AM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  Anyone have advice on landing (non-paid) speaking gigs or getting in front of large audiences?

I'm something of an expert on a rather niche subject (directly related to my work), and aside from word-of-mouth recommendations my best way to acquire new clients has been presentations/speaking gigs. I spend half an hour or so teaching about my field and almost always have a few people approach me afterward, many of whom soon become clients.

I've done local rotary clubs, alumni groups, informal university lectures, etc., again mostly via word-of-mouth (as in a current client recommends me to their group). I seem to have maxed out my personal network though, and I'm trying to figure out how to go about advertising myself as a speaker. I don't charge anything to speak, it's all simply an opportunity to educate attendees about my field and allow them to approach me if interested in my services.

Any recommendations? My first thought was to create a list of local organizations likely to want speakers (such as rotary clubs) and basically cold call to offer my services, but I'm interested if anyone here has dealt with something similar.

Whenever you get a conference invitation in your industry reply to them and ask do you need a speaker on xyz subject.

PM me!

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