The ultimate brain dump.
When the pressure is on, I find the easiest way to gain clarity is to just write own each and every task that needs to get done. From paying the electricity bill to client work. It all matters as it all adds stress.
Then I am able to quickly evaluate what is important and what isn’t. A simple activity that you don’t need to do day to day but when the crunch on this simple task helps get the stress out of your mind and onto paper.
That’s right I am kiwi born & bred, that means I’m from New Zealand (for those who don’t know).
I am proud to be a kiwi, taking my blog to the world and proud to live in Auckland (*cough* 4th equal best city in the world to live in), New Zealand truly is an amazing place. ***
Where did the term Kiwi come from? It comes from the native bird Kiwi – also you may have heard of the Kiwifruit which is grown in New Zealand and marketed to the world (truth be told it originates from China but was cultivated here).
Mahurangi Beach just outside Auckland
I was brought up in Otago, originally around Queenstown & Glenorchy. Both of which happen to be my most favourite places in New Zealand – also known by tourists as scenes from Lord of the Rings haha.
As I know most of my readers aren’t from New Zealand, I do invite you to come down, check it out, see what the gossip is. In fact if you are coming through Auckland email me and let’s have a pint, wine or coffee.
If you are planning on doing so I suggest you check out AA Top 101 Destinations in New Zealand – it was voted on by the locals and really does highlight the amazing stuff you can do here.
*** Note I am incredibly beyond belief biased.
Freemium works by providing a base service free, their tiers of service at a premium.
Flickr is an early example of this, use their service for free, upload a decent amount of photos a month. Premium service offers increased upload for heavy users and photo sets (as well as a nice little badge).
I’d like to see more of this in day to day life:
Offering something for free offers a great lead in and conversation for your customers.
It also paves the way for more customers through the doors, however you do have to be smart and ensure there is the upsell, as without it you are just catering to freeloaders.
What free models would you like to see? Or have seen? Be great to hear from you…
I did a radio interview this morning and one of the questions was how does an idea become a chapter in the book.
Well it has actually gone through a few filters, as you may know from my Great but not great enough post that is the first big filter.
For every blog post that makes it about 3 don’t. So for the 300 or odd so posts that are live, about 900 haven’t.
Then for those that made it live, the filter was based on popularity, my personal favourites and relevance.
By the time it has made it to the book, it has gone through three filters, at each step ideas have been refined, questioned, and put back together.
All I am doing is providing a series of filters, where at each step the most remarkable stuff makes it through and the rest drops off.
This is all that YouTube does, or that email newsletter, or the people you follow on twitter. They provide a filtered view of the mass content. By following and engaging you get access to the end result.
So what do you filter for your customers? Can you deliver filtered (and relevant) content do your audience as a way of engaging? For if you can, you’re customers will love you for it.
What is the rule of three?
Well if you’re ever asking yourself what should I charge for my time? Figure out what you’d like to earn then multiple it by three.
Why? Well it is all too easy to under price yourself (way too easy). We often forget the initial meeting we had, the two hours putting together a proposal, the time cost of getting to and from meetings, not to even mention fuel costs, calling, hardware and our own intellectual property.
This rule helps you avoid falling into the trap of being too cheap, over time you will get a feel of your market rate but use this as a baseline to start from.
By now you will have received a number of posts from the blog which I’m sure you are enjoying (over 300 since day 1 in fact!)
Often it’s not the post itself but what you take away from the ideas that provide the most value. A conversation, a new idea, something you can implement in your own life.
That’s the real kick I get, stimulating new thought that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Blogs are fantastic in providing fresh content each and every day - however the restriction is how do I expose some of the classics to new readers? So what I have done is included some of them below.
The Most Popular Posts (ever)
You Can do what YOU Want
Why Entrepreneurs should go to university
12 Hour Startup
bwagy marketing manifesto
Free Marketing Advice Pay What You Want
Most Controversial
You Can do what YOU Want
Why Entrepreneurs should go to university
Five Star Service
12 Hour Startup
Remarkable Content is like a drug
My Personal Favourites
You Can Do What You Want
You are Always Wrong
Are you made of rubber?
How I am tipping the book model
Fifteen Percent on
bwagy Networking Theory
And any post on Kiva http://blog.bwagy.com/tag/kiva/
Selling out on your customers. Delivering sub par service.
It’s easy to take a shortcut, cut corners to get the short term win…. But it’s not attractive…
Not attractive to your current; prospective or past customers.
You can may win them back. But at what cost?
I daresay it’s less than the windfall from your original shortcut…