Disaster Averted
Last week, I was playing around with my Make Your Copy Count website and manged to delete a plug-in. Unfortunately, this plug-in was the one that all my online courses are hosted on, which meant all my course content just vanished.
Everything gone with the click of a button.
As you can imagine, I had a minor meltdown. I spent months creating those courses. And, yes, I have all the videos, transcripts and PDFs saved, but I had to build all the courses, upload the content, make all the pages and so on, and that took a lot of time.
So I was in a bit of a panic.
I tried to figure out a way to get the plug-in back or restore the courses, but I was at a loss.
So I decided it was time to ask someone who might actually understand how to fix it - my website host.
It took me two minutes to explain my problem to someone via the online chat and the fee to fix it would be a ridiculously low sum of £1.73.
So I paid the £1.73, confirmed I wanted them to use the previous week's back up to retore my site. And then I went to bed. By the time I woke up the next morning, my courses were back.
Phew!
Note to self: don't go clicking around the back end of your site late at night while trying to have a phone conversation with your husband.
So I guess the moral of the story (other than be more careful) is get help from an expert when you don't know how to fix a problem.
I could have spent all night trying to find a solution by myself. And if I couldn't figure out how to restore my content, I could have reinstalled the plug-in and rebuilt the courses from scratch.
Luckily, common sense kicked in and I looked for someone who could give me the answer and help me fix the problem quickly.
Getting help with an IT problem or an accounts problem or a technical problem might seem like a no-brainer. But when it comes to an issue with sales or marketing or business processes in general, so many freelancers will try and figure out the solution by themselves.
I was guilty of this for a long time. I was too proud to admit I was struggling, so I'd pretend everything was ok - business was great. But in reality, I was miserable. My business just wasn't where I wanted it to be.
Finally, I got help. I worked with two different mentors to help me get on track. I invested in my marketing. I asked for advice. And I got where I wanted to be a hell of a lot faster than I would have if I'd kept struggling along by myself.
Now I help other freelancers move forward. I help them get unstuck. I help them figure out the problem and how to fix it.
So if you're tired of trying to figure things out by yourself, get in touch. Sometimes a problem can be solved much faster if you get help from the right person.
Working for yourself doesn't mean you have to do everything by yourself.
Your weekly ten-minute task
The weekly ten-minute tasks are short simple tasks that should take around ten minutes to complete (although you can spend longer if you want to). The goal is to help you improve your sales and marketing processes.
Completing these tasks won't magically transform your business, but doing one small thing each week to improve is better than doing nothing. So block out ten minutes in the next few days and complete the below task.
Review your monthly figures
This is something you should do at the end of every month to check whether your marketing and sales processes are working. So this week, I want you to answer the following questions for the month of April:
- How many enquiries did you get?
- How many of those enquiries were good enquiries (work you actually want)?
- How many of your total enquiries converted into paying clients?
- What was your total invoice amount for the month?
- How many hours did you work?
Looking at these figures can help you figure out what needs to change. If you got lots of enquiries but only a small percentage were good, then your marketing isn't attracting the right people. If you got a lot of good enquiries but not many converted into clients, your sales process needs work.
If you worked more hours than you wanted and didn't earn as much as you wanted, then your prices need to go up.
What will you do differently next month? Let me know.
Weekly anagrams
Sometimes you need a little break from work or something to get your brain going while you have your morning brew. That's where the weekly anagrams come in.
And this week they are all types WWE wrestlers of the 90s:
- hunted retaker
- herb tart
- machines shawl
- ha honk lug
- colds tone aunties vest
If you are unfamiliar with how anagrams work: An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, using all the original letters only once.
Feel free to send me your answers once you’ve got them all – there’s no prize, but it’s always good to share your achievements. I'll give you the answers in next week's email.
And talking of answers, here are the answers to last week's anagrams:
- noble tore = Toblerone
- cheer for error = Ferrero Rocher
- skip under riser = Kinder Surprise
- creamed curb eggy = Cadbury Crème Egg
- alter mess = Maltesers
Thanks for reading
That's it from me this week. As always, if you'd like my help with anything sales, marketing or business-related, you can book 90 minutes with me.
