If you don’t know Ian Traynor, that’s a shame because Ian is one of the online world’s ‘Marketing Gentlemen’, as is well known in webmaster and internet marketing circles. A shame also because you have missed one of the best internet marketing newsletters online, the Marketing Update newsletter, now in its final issue. I have been an update subscriber since January 2006, though I had seen Ian’s name around the web before then. Then I found him following me on Twitter, presumably because of this blog so I followed him back.

I consider Ian a personal friend even though we’ve never met in person, but that’s the internet for you:-). Though I hope to change that now that he, and shortly I, have both retired and have more time. We both have a lot in common Ian and I. We’re both 65 this year and we live in  adjoining English counties, he in Yorkshire and I in Lincolnshire. We’ve both been webmasters for 15 years and internet marketers for 10 and we’ve both been teaching small businesses to market online. I have been teaching groups of entrepreneurs offline in seminars, workshops and conferences; Ian has done it via his newsletters, websites, ebooks and marketing tools such as his legendary Internet Marketers Cheat Kit!

Ian has helped countless people to market online, not just by teaching but also by providing some great marketing and website tools. And he has delivered, in my humble opinion, some of the best quality and best value material anywhere. He is also one of the most approachable people in our business, he deals with his emails personally rather than using robots and has always welcomed contact from his readers.

I wish you and your good lady a very happy, healthy and fullfilling retirement Ian

John

Reader Opportunity

I mentioned an opportunity for you at the beginning of this post in connection with Ian’s retirement and that is his ‘Grand Retirement Sale’. He has put a huge quantity of his best products into a single package which is so good I’ve already grabbed it, even though I already had some of them! The opportunity to grab the rest while they were still available was too good to miss and a real snip at the price. Many of the top marketers in our field have also chipped in with some of their own stuff as free bonuses, and good products they are too. The sale is on until 21st July, so go take a look at his webpage and see what you can pick up for pennies on the dollar.

Update 22 July…

Ian’s sale finished yesterday. Sorry if you missed it but I have some good news. Ian is keeping on one of his projects, the Private PLR Club – of which I have been a member from the beginning, and ‘beefing it up’ even more. I’m personally relieved at that as some of my best products come from that particular source. I’ll keep you informed of this as it develops further.

If you are not familiar with Private Label Rights (PLR), it is a form of product licensing and is a brilliant way of sourcing information and software products for both online and offline businesses. I’ll put up a post here soon to explain further how to use PLR to set up a simple business.

The interesting thing though is that, throughout all this, at any moment, someone was making money and someone was losing money! A boom can be a crazy, scary place to be and a bust can throw up some amazing bargains and opportunities, and right now is no different.

The true entrepreneur knows his/her market and is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to serve that market. They can help their customers to enjoy the boom years and help them survive the bad times. Keeping a focus on what you can do to serve your customer well at all times and in all conditions will ensure not only business survival, but growth in both good and bad times.

So, how can I use my experiences to help you?

Tell Me Your Troubles, Your Hopes, Your Fears and Your Goals

If you are trying to start a business, what is stopping you?

If you are trying to grow a business, what is holding you back?

If your business is struggling to survive, what are your problems?

If you are achieving your goals and doing well, chip in with what’s working and what’s not and help those less fortunate readers.

Throw me some challenges and see what we can come up with. Click the feedack link below to join in…

The eBay For Beginners Video Course comes from Francis Ochoco, the first ever ‘eBay Entrepreneur Of The Year’. This course will be available for download soon for around £29.99 UK or $47 USA. You’ll get the complete set of 28 videos in top quality AVI format to view on your own computer.

Watch the videos now free!

For the moment though, I’m letting my Be Your Own Boss readers have a Free preview of the full course. The preview will take the form of 28 daily lessons all the way from setting up an ebay account to shipping your product to the customer. Each day you will be sent an email with a link to that day’s training and a password to watch the video online. You’ll need the password as I can’t give this away to just anyone, this is just for you.

If doing business on ebay is something you’re interested in you can get more information and enroll here. Your first lesson will be sent to you as soon as you confirm your enrollment.

As you would expect we value and protect the privacy of all our readers you can check out our Privacy Policy here.

Once again I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this course. I’ve reviewed it and believe it delivers excellent content, but your opinion is far more important than mine.

Check it out and let me know what you think via the comments below.

This is way overdue but I’ve intended for some time to produce a series of online training courses for new businesses or even those just thinking of starting a business. With two businesses of my own to run and a growing number of consulting clients finding the time has been a little tricky. Now I’m semi-retired and cutting back on my full day business training workshops the time has come to put my courses on auto-pilot.

First up is a simple six day small business crash course via email, one lesson a day. This is intended for those just considering starting their own business or anyone struggling to get started. It answers the key questions about “how do I get started?” Things like:

• The ins and outs of starting your own small business along with some of the basic steps you will need to take to get up and running.
• Some of the different options available for financing your small business, so that you can choose the one that is right for you.
• An overview of how to create a professional business plan for your small business.
• Some of the basic information that you must know when it comes to paying taxes for your small business.
• Some of the common mistakes that small business owners make, so you can avoid making them yourself.
• The importance of having an online presence and developing an internet marketing strategy for your small business

There will be more short courses to come in future but in the meantime find out more about my Small Business Crash Course. You can enroll for the course from that page.

Oh! I forgot to mention, this one’s FREE!

If you take the course, come back here and let me know how you get on. I would really appreciate your feedback on the course. You can also let me know what else you would like to know about starting and running your own business.

Use the comments form below to give me your feedback, or just click the comments link.

The UK Financial Services Authority have had concerns for some time that financial services products are too often recommended by unscrupulous financial advisers on the basis of the amount of commission they receive rather than being the best product for the client.

The majority of professional financial advisers in UK, and elsewhere, take pains to provide clients with the best advice they can but there has been a persistent band of rogue advisers who think only of themselves.

If your business is in financial services you will probably have seen this coming. But read on as I shall be coming back to you later…

If you are not in financial services then this doesn’t affect you, does it?

Well, yes it does! Especially if you have been used to getting your financial advice for free. Or apparently for free…

Most people in UK don’t pay an adviser for recommending life insurance, investments, pensions etc. because the adviser has been remunerated by the life, investment or pension company by way of commission on the sale. Obviously the companies paying this commission have to make it back in some way and that is by some form of management charge built into the product. This means that the client is actually paying this commission indirectly.

Under the new system, the client (you) will be expected to pay the adviser a fee for the financial advice given. This should mean that the product should be better value for money as there are no commission charges to account for and your adviser has no reason not to recommend the best product for your needs.

However, if you take financial advice but take no action on that advice you will still have to pay the adviser’s fee. Unlike in the commission situation where you can just walk away leaving the adviser with nothing.

Now, back to the financial advisers out there.

The good thing about this change is that you will always be able to get paid for financial advice you give regardless of whether the client takes that advice or not. You will be free to advise the client on any course of action you feel is appropriate to their financial circumstances without any concerns about likely remuneration.

Your only problems, if you have not been charging on a fees basis up until now, is one of educating the client in the new ways of financial services and setting up the appropriate contracts and procedures to handle the new regime.

I’ve been talking to a very senior financial adviser about this as he has operated a fees based financial service for over twenty years now. He certainly understands the problems facing commission based financial advisers over the next couple of years.

In fact he has been helping many financial advisers move over to a fees based system for the last ten years or so.

His name is Terence P O’Halloran, ‘ Terry’ to his friends, and he has been a major player in the industry for well over thirty years. Terry first unveiled his Fee-Pac product for financial advisers over ten years ago and has steadfastly kept it up to date, improved, evolved and expanded it over the years into a major package suitable for any fees based profession.

Fee-Pac now includes a full video training seminar on setting up a fees based business, complete client and adviser documentation as well as all the admin files needed to set up a successful fees based practice. This is an extremely professional piece of kit.

If you are a financial adviser or thinking of getting into that business then check out Fee-Pac here. I can’t believe how little he is charging for it considering its potential value to you in the coming months.

Interesting times ahead!

When I first started marketing my business online back in the late nineties the biggest problem was so few potential customers on the internet. Competition was not a problem so I found it very easy to reach those customers who did have an internet connection. Ten years on and the world’s population has flooded onto the internet, there are so many products and services available online they are all spoilt for choice. The market is huge and the competition is intense, which makes it very hard for the new entrant to internet business to know where to start. A recent comment from Dominic, one of my readers, on an earlier post said it all, “im tryin 2 start ma own business and would like 2 no the best way 2 go“.

Well, I started this website some time ago to try to help people like Dominic but now I’ve gone further. After much searching I have sourced a regular supply of Special Internet Marketing Reports. They cover everything from setting up an internet business, including the basic technical stuff, through affiliate marketing (i.e. selling other peoples’ products on commission), setting up a website, getting visitor traffic and building customer mailing lists.

At the time of writing there are 15 reports, each report currently sells for $19.95 as you will see from the website. However, to help out in this recession, we have a package special at the moment where you can get all 15 reports for only $67 (that’s less than $5 each!). What’s more, you also get a special discount coupon which enables you to get all future reports at a mere $5 each. There’s no obligation to buy more or to buy every month, it’s not a ‘book club’, just a way to make this information available at a price affordable to anyone.

You can get the special package of all reports here=>Special Reports Package.

Maybe someone will buy it for you for Christmas

The topic I was considering was how to find out what my customers would need next, a preliminary to product creation. Her enquiry gave me the blindingly obvious thought, why not just ask them! Why not just make a list of my best and most influential customers and ring them up and ask “what 3 things connected with telecoms would help you to grow or better manage your business right now?” Telecoms is my primary business as you probably already know.

Once I get a selection of typical responses from my customers, I can then look at how I might deliver what they have asked for. But better still, I can then contact prospective customers with the same question. Rather than take the usual telesales route of trying to pitch prospects on a particular service, I can ask them what they want with a fair idea of what their responses may be based on the results of my customer conversations.

Approaching prospective customers is a little trickier so a ’softly, softly’ approach is best. I would simply ask if they could spare a minute to give me their thoughts on what 3 things about their telecoms would most help their business to move forward in the present economy.

You see, when you ask other people their opinion and express an interest in their business, they open up and are happy to talk to you. The normal ’sales barriers’ come down leading to some very useful discussion, and what’s more – they will remember you as someone genuinely interested in their welfare not just as some salesman trying to make a buck.

So where does the ‘penny’ come in? Well, at current business phone rates (UK) that penny buys me a minutes worth of phone time, the very minute that I asked the prospect to spare me to give me their thoughts.

Of course most of them will talk for longer once they get started but by then I’ve turned a prospective customer in to a warm lead and a probable future customer.

“A penny for your thoughts“, a very inexpensive way to find out what the market will buy from you next!

Try it, let me know how you get on.

PS (shameless plug warning!) If you are a UK based business here’s where you can get your business calls at a penny a minute.

The classic is the ‘make loads of money overnight with no effort’ or the ‘everything is done for you’ approach. There is no such thing as ‘money for nothing’, I know – I’ve searched for years and years . In the internet world the latest game is to convince you that your own personal robot or software will do it all for you. An example is a recent comment from a reader on the Forum page about an investment trading robot.

No! Software won’t do it all for you, it may take a lot of tedious or routine work off your shoulders, but it won’t make the entrepreneurial decisions or take the key business actions that are essential to success.

There are shortcuts to success in business, but they come from your aquired knowledge and experience and working ’smart’, not from buying some ‘get rich quick’ scheme.

Way back in the dim and distant past I was introduced to the concept of working on my business instead of working in my business. This was quite a revelation and is actually the key difference between creating a job and building a business.

Working in your business means spending your time doing all the work involved in getting customers, providing them with the products or services you sell and doing all the admin stuff that goes with it all. This means that growth is limited by the time you have available. Even taking on staff to do some of the work can often involve you in more work training and managing the staff.

The magic formula for getting you as a business owner off this endless self-imposed treadmill is systems. The systems I have applied  to my business have given me time to plan strategically and, more important, given me more time for myself and family. In fact I now work only 3 days a week and yet the business keeps running just fine.

Setting up systems can take quite a bit of time initially, but will pay dividends for years to come. The first thing to do is to list all the jobs and tasks that need to be done on a day to day basis. Then for each task identify all the steps in the order they are carried out and the specific ‘how to do it’ process. Then write a detailed description or procedure for each task. The real trick is to document the procedure in such a way that anyone with the necessary skills could just walk into the business and take over that task with the minimum of training.

The next thing is to look at each task to see if it can be improved, streamlined or automated. Can the task be computerised or mechanised. Start by looking at what the end result of the task should look like and consider alternative means to the same end. Just because a task has always been done a particular way doesn’t mean that it is still the best way!

Think of it as producing, task by task, a complete operating manual for the business covering every area of the business.

Once the ‘operating manual’ is complete, look at who will carry out each task and what equipment, if any, is needed. Make use of check lists for each task to ensure quality control.

One of the most popular books on setting up small business systems was “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber. That’s now out of print but was later replaced by “The E-Myth Revisited“.

Be Your Own Boss will still be my main site for business development advice and support but the new HQ will manage delivery of all products and services as well as memberships, subscriptions, accounting and my affiliate program. For anyone with diverse business interests who is finding it difficult to keep track, I can certainly recommend centralisation of core business services. This is going to make life so much easier, I would have done it earlier if I could have found the right software but now I have. I’ll give you more information on it as I become more familiar with it.