Go North!

About a year ago I was reappraising every thing about my business; not because it was NOT doing well but because it was! I was so busy I was travelling hither and thither across the UK and getting exhausted. It was great financially but one of the reasons I became self employed was to have a better work life balance and this wasn't it!

I am a coach and a trainer and have been self employed since 2003. I love it! I had already worked closely with an advertsing agency and got my logo and branding sorted; I wanted to explore different ways of generating an income while still staying true to my principles. My tacit business motto is I do not want to exploit anyone but neither do I want to be exploited myself!

I had an idea about producing some CDs of my most popular training events. For example, I have an event on in Bath in September on assertiveness (my brand of being assertive and still having friends!). My idea was that each participant could also buy a CD to take away and play when they were going off to deal with a particularly difficult situation and to remind themselves of the skills they had acquired on my course.

I began looking around for advice and quite literally at just the right moment a newsletter from a marketing man fell into my box. It had been sent by a local business link member. I was about to delete it thinking it far too brash and in 'yer face' for me! I am so glad I didn't as I have now been working with Jim Connolly for over a year and learned so much about marketing.

The point of this blog (yes, I am getting there...) is to share the following with you. I was at this time looking for a web designer with a specialism in e commerce. I had sourced several and the average price, give or take a few hundred, was about 3 grand. I am in South West.

Jim Connolly thought this excessive and advised me to look outside of South West as after all, I didn't need to meet my web person as I knew roughly what i wanted. I found one who charged me less than half! And I have been hugely happy with the result having a Google ranking of 4 most of the time. (A year ago i wouldn't have known what that was!)

So my advice is there are some things you can safely save money on but get really good advice, even if you have to pay for it! And look North!
You can see the results on www.changingpeople.co.uk and also sign up fo rmy free newsletter if you wish (the result of another piece of marketing advice!)
My best wishes to you!
Jane