Morning all,
Back here again for the Monday morning shift.
It’s crazy how time (I know it’s a cliche) does seem to fly.
The days turn into weeks, the weeks into months, etc, etc.
Here I am now trying to figure out how to build:
An accounting company and a web development company whilst trying to stabilize the lead-generation agency.
I love it all the same – in spite of the ‘split focus’ and other challenges it brings – the stimulation it provides my mind is perfect for me.
I’ve already identified a load of pages I want to be built for the web development company, and the accounting company outreach begins today as well.
It’s exciting to have a system in place for:
- Registering a website and building it out
- Developing all of the content for the website
- Launching SEO for the website
- Launching cold email + LinkedIn to try and win clients
- Hiring a sales rep to work on the leads generation to try and close them
- Building a basic operations team
1, 2, 3, and 4 work well right now. 5 & 6 I’m still refining them – but as time passes you get better and better at it because you get more and more chances to work on them.
I’ve got an SEO team that Semil (my head of SEO) and I have built from scratch – he has found the people and together we’ve helped develop them.
I’m in the process of building a PR team with Pearl being the head of this team which she is building out now. That team over the next year I plan to grow to 3-people depending upon the volume of work we’re able to bring in.
Building a cold-calling and lead-generation team is what I’m currently in the process of doing – and this is an extremely challenging task to try and achieve. It’s been some years since I’ve been trying to build it but now it looks like it’s closer than ever to coming together.
And yes, as discussed – it’s another Monday and time to start the grind again.
Building a remote team and trying to build it extremely quickly presents all kinds of challenges.
I’ve got 6 potential new people on trial with no real clue as to who will come out and be dependable on the other side of it.
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Rebecca, Gary, Kerry, Mary, Amie, and Lehi.
From these 6 I’m hoping to find one good person – that’ll be a victory for me.
Just this morning I had Dona, who has got Covid, drop out of the program now after only being with us for a few days (to recuperate). Gary (my nephew) who was adamant he would be ready from 8 am today looks like he’s not even awake. Lehi as it turns out is actually starting in August not in July…
All of this has just happened this morning.
So I’m beginning to get accustomed to the turbulence of trying to find reliable people.
But then, as I’ve discussed with Adam – it’s just a case of looking at the upsides – our training is now 35+ videos. We’ve got a significant process improvement happening now with centralized lead reporting and lengthy training for all new starters.
We’re also getting all of the videos supplemented with quizzes and training worksheets.
Adam as our head of sales keeps improving and the team we do have (to date) seem reliable in EJ, Kristel and Adrian get better every day.
This is not to mention my own skill level which I’m working on improving through studying sales daily – at the moment I’m making ‘Smart Calling’ by Art Sobczak and making notes as I go along.
Running an agency for several years steels you for the rigors of it – and I’ve been able to see the benefit of SEO for lead generation so much greater than I have with SEO for SEO itself.
That’s why the new focus on PR should hopefully drive a lot of new business to us from around 3-6 months from now.
Time is needed to get the new crop of keywords ranking on page 1.
And in Vasco – our head of new business – hopefully new deals will come.
I’m enjoying right now the ‘anti-keyword’ approach I’m taking to writing this content each morning.
It’s definitely much more of a journal than it is anything else which is exactly what I need right now.
Although in saying that I’m now thinking that alternating could work. One day I’ll do some keyword research focussed type stuff – and the day after (like today) I’ll just write about whatever the hell I want to write about.
Let’s see what comes of it.
For now – it’s approaching 8 am and I’m hopping onto a call with the cold calling team so let’s see how that goes!
Catch you tomorrow!
