Home > Blogs > Frustrated Businessman > Permalink

Sunday 9th March – We must make time and endeavour to protect ourselves. (Blog 1 of 2)

Blog: Frustrated Businessman
Posted by: knightrider45 Sunday 9th March 2008, 9:01pm
Last edited 09/03/2008 9:01pm by knightrider45

I love these war speeches. Mainly because I feel I'm at war with my life most of the time.

But, when everything's stalemate, like it is now, it gets really hard to stay focused.

Ok, here we go. The 9 hours I spent the other day advertising have come to nothing. In answer to Kim's question, the deal was a trade package of some of the books I'm dealing with at the moment. I did the advertising the best way I knew how, with search engine optimisation (making the web site search engine, & especially Google, friendly), and sending emails out through the safelists I had to rejoin to do so.

I only got ten hits on the web site as a result of the hard work I did, and no sales.

So, I'm considering options, including paying a few companies to send the adverts out for me so I can spend my time, better, doing other things. Like working the markets, and putting a package together and doing a bit of repping. Designing mail shots for sending out. Anything to drag some funds in.

I am on a pinnacle at the moment, with everything precariously balanced. And, if I lose it now, I'd have ruined everything in the future, or at best, severely delayed all my plans. I must, for example, keep the mortgage upto date in order to be able to raise enough funds at the end of this year by remortgaging to pay the bills next year as I pack up my job and go full time in the business.

With 12 months bill money in advance in the bank, I will be free to build up the business and generate cash to fund my second year in business in 2010. I've got to build the business up from absolute loss as it is now, relying on funding from my wages, to turning over at least £27k a year just to meet the household bills.

But, over the last few years, I've learned a few lessons. Like the fact that it's impossible to build up a business on the net alone - the web site has to be the final (money collecting) stage of the business plan - not the first. Secondly, the internet is Americanised - and everywhere I seem to turn it's American. Not much chance of a small English firm building itself up, having started from scratch. The two main exceptions to big internet only firms I know are eBay and Amazon - but there again, they're American owned as well. Proves the point doesn't it?

Our firms like Tesco, Argos and the like wouldn't be as big as they are now if they'd relied totally on the internet. Because people expect everything free off the net. Because Internet use is not as major as people hype it up to be - if memory serves me right, a business report in the EDP said that something like 43% of Norfolk businesses still don't have a web site - or is it just Norfolk? It's my market only have 3 or 4 active bloggers now - all the other blogs are inactive. Proves the point again.

And I can't afford the thousands of pounds it costs to advertise my web site on television or radio. It doesn't look like radio advertising works here either - IMM is being advertised 24/7 and the activity here is so low, despite all the advertising.

So, I'm rethinking everything, and my life, through next weekend when I'm off. I am not allowing myself to fail, or to be forced into a lifestyle I do not want, nor need. I owe it to myself and my family to pull this whole situation around, and fast. And I'll be making new plans to do this next weekend.

And you know what? I'll do it!

Comments

Want to comment on this blog entry? Blog Entry Discussion (0 comments)

Spread the Word

Flag as inappropriate
If you believe the content of this blog post is inappropriate and should be reviewed.

More posts from this blog...