“I’d been in business for a while and if I’m being honest I was just making it up as I went along, but when I started the world looked very different, especially when most of your target customers were large financial services organisations. I got off to a pretty good start, worked very hard, and made some money initially. But it went downhill from there. I had staff, offices, large overheads (mainly the staff and the offices!!) and gradually my work slipped away and one day I realized I had no clients. I don’t mean a lack of clients, or even a scarcity of clients, what I mean is no clients at all! For three months my business made literally no profit losing significant amounts of cash every month.
Ripping me off…
“All my staff left, which I don’t blame them for as they would have had to go anyway. Two of them tried to set up in competition, but what were they competing for? Sleepless nights? Running out of money every month? Extreme hair loss?. At one point there was just me and a college student that had joined me on a one month work placement to help with the marketing and admin. I was less than £2,000 away from what would have been financial ruin. I mean, when that money had gone, I would have had nothing left. The bank would not lend me any money for the business. I couldn’t raise any more money on my house, and all the credit cards were all maxed out. Yes, you need violins and tissues for this bit.
“If it’s to be it’s up to me!” (sound familiar?)
“Anyway, I’d had the idea for EasyOnlineRecruitment.co.uk for a while, but never seemed to be able to find the time to do anything about it before. Now I had plenty of time on my hands, I mean it’s not like I was busy placing star candidates into high powered jobs, or chasing large invoices for payment. So together with Lestyn my work experience student, we set about finding some clients. It was a bit like the blind leading the blind. I was no marketer myself, and Lestyn had the theory, but no practical experience, but I figured we had nothing to lose, and he knew no better! Around this time, I received Nige’s 18 secrets email. I was working all the hours under the sun, so I thought that taking 45 minutes or so to listen to someone that has “been there and done” would be a nice little break from the old routine as much as anything.
A no brainer…
“I wrote 5 pages of notes from that initial webinar (“front AND back!”) – I literally drank the information, and couldn’t believe that no one had brought this stuff to my attention before! At the end of the webinar, I signed up for all the freebies adjoined EC. OMG, I’m so glad that I did…
Eyes wide open…
“What I learned literally changed my thinking about business, specifically about my own business. I’ve never been a “victim”, and I’ve always studied in a self development capacity, but it just seemed that what I had read previously (Think & Grow Rich, The Secret, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Success through a Positive Mental Attitude) all these other books had a great sentiment, and I’d recommend them to anyone, but none of them gave real practical lessons about generating new client enquiries.
A plan…
“I’ve now got a proper marketing plan. It has a number of “pillars”, including email marketing, direct mail, social media (that’s a biggie for me, and something Lestyn still helps a lot with), webinars (planned, with deadlines), networking (including EC events), PPC & SEO (check out “online recruitment” on Google, we should be somewhere near the top of the natural pages), website development (we have video, plus lots more plans for landing and squeeze pages, and data capture forms .)
And guess what?! I’ve now got some customers again. I’ve got new, more reliable staff, who help me work towards my goal -it’s their goal too, and we share the rewards. In fact I’ve got better staff and more customers now than I have ever had before, which I plan on keeping. I’m moving from this broom cupboard to some proper offices in the next couple of months and my sales, turnover and profit are really good.
All of this boils down to:
- Business people (in fact people generally) are entirely responsible for what happens to them – it’s our fault, good or bad. Sometimes all you have to do is change your perspective. I turned the traditional recruitment agency model on its head, and now I find my clients multiple staff for less than the cost of an advert in their local paper
- If you are struggling, with anything, then all you have to do is find some help. There are loads of people out there that can help guide you, coach you, and usually for much less money than you would have ever believed, in fact often, I have found, for free
- I set some realistic, but challenging financial targets for myself this year. I’ve just had my most successful month ever and I’m on course for 163% of target.”
