Category: Strategy

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I Need to be More Open to Feedback and Criticism

A friend was giving me some suggestions on some of my marketing efforts and part of my website, and I realized that my natural reaction is to get defensive or dismissive.

I’ve created a business over the years in which I don’t need to rely on anyone and rarely have any genuine discussions with anyone about how to run it. I’m in charge and I decide pretty much everything.

But I wonder how much of that is just sort of a defense strategy to avoid facing any criticism? Perhaps in my quest for total independence, I’ve gone too far and now dismiss all external suggestions.

And that’s a bad thing.

Many of his suggestions were good. And I really should be actively seeking advice from others if I want to keep growing and succeeding.

I’ve never liked feedback or criticism but I feel like that’s something I should probably address. Because I need that feedback. It is extremely helpful.

This might just be a personal thing that I need to focus on and work on over time. Hopefully I’ll eventually start actively getting feedback from others in some way and make improvements based on that feedback.

It may be the only way forward!

Especially since I had a major disappointment yesterday. I had been in talks to acquire a fairly large website host and it looked like an excellent fit. I found out yesterday that they decided to go with another buyer, which was a huge blow.

I feel like I need to channel that disappointment and do better all around and improve. I need to get tactical with my efforts and really start hammering home my efforts to acquire other businesses.

It’s nice when they come to me, but I don’t think I can count on that every time. I need to start aggressively seeking them out, I think.

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I Should Focus on Opportunities, not on Worries

I was feeling pretty good this morning; better than I have in a while. And I realized that I had basically spent all morning thinking about positive, future opportunities.

A project I was excited to get started, some growth possibilities in my company, potential get-togethers with friends.

And it left me feeling good. I was also focused and productive and felt more motivated than usual.

In contrast, I feel like lately I’ve almost exclusively focused on worries and concerns. I’ve been super busy with a bunch of different things and stressed because of some projects. My mind has been focusing on what could go wrong and how I should address it and never on things that could go right and what a difference that would make.

I feel like I used to always focus on opportunities and positive things, but somewhere along the way, I switched.

I just read an older blog post where I was super motivated. I’ve come across a bunch of these. My energy, excitement, and enthusiasm before the pandemic seem to have been unstoppable.

Despite the fact that I wasn’t in as good of shape and still drank and generally hadn’t gotten my life together as much, I still seemed to have a motivation that I have never been able to match since. And I’ve commented on it while going through old blog posts.

Maybe that’s when it happened.

Maybe it was the fear and worry and general anxious atmosphere surrounding the early days of the pandemic that flipped some kind of switch in me. I started focusing on the negative rather than the positive, and maybe I’ve never come back from that.

And that’s a shame.

But more than just being a shame, it’s really counter-productive.

I think about where my head has been at, and it’s silly. I’m wasting all my time worrying about a small, one-time project I have going on. More than likely it will end up fine, but regardless: the long-term difference between the most positive and most negative outcome on my life is quite small.

This is the case for virtually everything I worry about.

Conversely, I am currently in talks to acquire a hosting company with hundreds of websites. The positive impact this could have on my business and my life is massive. Long term, we’re talking maybe 3 orders of magnitude greater than the project I’ve been worried about.

And now that I’m thinking about it: it’s absolutely insane. I’ve been giving the negative thing more space in my head than the positive thing that’s potentially 1000 times more important.

I need to totally rewire myself to think almost exclusively about opportunities. Because the aforementioned opportunity is just one opportunity I have right now. There is no limit to others I could have. I just need to be focused on opportunities and how I can achieve everything I’m looking to do.

Honestly, even writing this out, I am getting a bit of a tinge of excitement realizing what I could be doing and how much I’ve been missing out on. I’ve gotten the fundamentals right in so many areas of my life, and I feel like I’m poised to make some big moves if I just focus on the big opportunities and implementing all of the initiatives I think of.

After all, most of the things I’ve tried have worked up until this point. Some have taken longer than others, and some have obviously led to more success than others.

But I’ve had very few abject failures, and most things have worked out in the end if I have put enough work into them.

So from now on: I just need to focus not just on being positive, but on the big picture, on growth, and on the opportunities I have.

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I Need to Focus on Hosting Problems and Write About Them in Blog

I realized that I really need to focus on problems people have with their hosting and just blog about those. It’s an excellent way to capture people who are very interested in leaving their website host.

I’ve been focusing hard on simply acquiring other businesses, but I actually think that it’s important to continue trying to get the low-hanging fruit of new clients.

After all, even after two acquisitions, the majority of my hosting clients still came to me as regular clients by themselves. It’s more work to acquire them on average, but if I just have these funnels in place, it could mean a steady stream of new clients.

Ultimately, it feels like if I’m just buying businesses, I’m simply profiting off of the hard work that they did in acquiring these clients. So it might feel kind of good to also be putting in the work on my end and acquiring clients in any way that I can.

Plus, having more clients makes my business more valuable, no matter where they came from. If I ever want to sell one day, I’ll want to have the maximum number of clients possible.

So going forward, I should really just be thinking constantly about what kinds of hosting issues people have and then blogging about them. I also need to pay attention to any issues my clients have. If anything ever comes up, I should blog about it!

One thing actually DID happen this week, and I should definitely blog about it. So that’s on the list for next week.

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I Should Establish a YouTube Presence Targeting Small Website Hosts

This is a very preliminary idea, but one that could actually turn into something.

I could establish a YouTube presence where I’m creating content aimed at helping small business owners who provide website hosting services to their clients.

The general idea would be that I’m posting content related to operations and marketing for these businesses to help them. But then I would occasionally mention that I’m also looking to buy companies like theirs.

If I can help people grow their businesses: great! But at the same time I’d be establishing myself as an expert in the industry. And if they already knew that I was interested in buying, then if the day ever comes where they are thinking about selling their business, I’d be the first one they’d go to. I’d be top-of-mind.

It would be a fairly big commitment, of course. And I’d need to put some work into producing some quality content. But if I started getting the right kind of traffic it could be extremely beneficial.

And worst case: it still increases the size of my online footprint and would likely still improve my search engine rankings for relevant keywords.

I’m working on some other things right now but I’m interested in picking this back up and pursuing it when I finish them.

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There is Tremendous Value in Managing Complicated but Inexpensive Tasks

I had a bit of an epiphany today that most of the recurring profit (and probably profit of any kind) generated by my company comes from the management of relatively inexpensive services.

So in our case, that’s mostly website hosting but also applies to things like ongoing services for WordPress and even domain name registration.

I just re-read one of my old blog posts and I mentioned how, when presented with the option for even faster hosting, virtually all of my clients have declined. And I found that fascinating.

Over time, I’ve realized that the technical specs of my hosting don’t matter a whole lot to any of my clients.

What they value is that I’m managing everything. They know I’m handling it all, configuring it will, and they inherently trust that what I’m offering is high-quality. Beyond that, they don’t understand and don’t care to understand how it works.

And that’s all great, and something I have already written about.

But today I thought… What other services fit a similar description? I think anything that meets the following criteria would fit the bill for a great opportunity:

  1. More or less a commodity service but with premium options available
  2. Relatively complex behind the scenes and poorly-understood by most
  3. Recurring service with minimal maintenance required once set up properly
  4. Tech or software related and possible to perform entirely online
  5. Ideally a service used by businesses and not just by consumers

Anything that meets all four of these criteria could potentially be a great opportunity for me. In addition to the website hosting and domain name registrations we’re already providing, here are some that I can think of now:

  • Cloud-based email hosting – particularly services that will not be interacting with third-party clients, such as Google Workspace
  • Cloudflare services / DNS hosting
  • Zapier Integrations
  • Managed Google Analytics and similar tools
  • Merchant services accounts/integrations, like with Authorize.net

Of these, the last one interests me the most. I could basically just resell Authorize.net services and get it set up and maintain it, and people would love it because I would handle everything for them. I could just have a form that people sign up on that gets all of the information needed to get set up and do it all for them.

I’m sure there are lots of others, but these were just the ones I thought of now.

I just definitely keep thinking about this and try to find more examples.

A possible 6th category may very well be: “is able to be managed entirely by me without the need for a client account”.

That would be a major drawback of the merchant services stuff, because they wouldn’t see the need for me if they had their own account that would keep working without me. Ideally it would all be behind the scenes.

The value is there regardless, it’s just that if they have their own account, they would be inclined to question the value without understanding the full picture.

 

 

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I Should Really Market Occasionally to my Existing Clients

Anyone who’s in marketing would say “duh” to this… But I’m starting to think I really do need to do it.

I hate doing most traditional forms of marketing, and email-newsletters are certainly on that list.

But I realized today that, for many of my newer clients (especially via acquisition), they have no idea what my business stands for, what we’re about, or even that we’re looking to grow.

I think sending a couple emails per year would probably be quite beneficial. If nothing else, I could share news about myself and the company and they would feel closer and more connected with me, which would improve retention.

It would also make them more comfortable to reach out to me for anything they need.

And then, one of the most important parts, would be that it might increase organic growth via referrals. If they are happy with my services and know that I’m looking to grow, they will refer their friends and family to me and potentially ask to sign up their other projects as well.

You could argue that this is very low-hanging fruit. I already have a huge list of clients that are mostly pleased with my services and would be happy to share my name with some if I were top-of-mind.

I’ve added it to my list for next week to be my marketing project. Hopefully by next Friday, I’ll send out my first email in years.

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General Plan for Photos Site

It’s time I finally made progress on my fine art photos site.

Today, I reviewed it and tried to see if there were any search results for the one photo I have uploaded to this point.

I was disappointed to find that I’m an idiot and had been discouraging search engines from indexing it all this time. Great.

So I fixed that and got Google Analytics 4 added, so I’ll be able to track it better and get some traffic to it.

I’m not really pleased with how it looks and, at some point, I think I’ll need to fix that.

However, there’s really no point if it’s not getting traffic yet.

So here’s a general outline of what I’d like to do with it in the coming future:

  • Start uploading my best photos with an emphasis on going deep with each one, optimizing the page, content, and description
  • Develop a regular schedule of uploading – perhaps one photo each day
  • Put together a schedule for developing content on the home page and an “About” page
  • Develop a strategy for occasional blog posts and articles discussing my photography
  • Figure out a strategy to get some backlinks

Once I feel like all of these things are in line, I’d like to simply wait and see if I start getting search engine traffic. Based on that traffic, I can decide how to start proceeding.

Without search engine traffic, the plan doesn’t work. I need it in order to actually make sales and have my plan work.

Let’s do it.

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Brainstorm: Where Could I Post Articles About Selling a WordPress Host?

I think that in order to be really successful at coming up in search results for selling a WordPress hosting company, I’ll need to go out and get some relevant backlinks.

The most effective of these, of course, would be from articles about this very topic, posted elsewhere.

But where exactly can I post these?

I just asked ChatGPT, and the answer was… Excellent. I’m just going to go ahead and paste what it said:

  1. Medium – Medium is a popular platform for publishing articles, with a wide range of topics and a large readership. You can create a free account and start publishing your articles.
  2. LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a professional social media platform that allows you to post articles about your industry. It’s a great place to showcase your expertise and connect with other professionals.
  3. Quora – Quora is a question-and-answer website that allows you to post articles and answers to questions related to your industry. It’s a great way to establish yourself as an authority in your field.
  4. HubPages – HubPages is a website that allows you to create articles on a wide range of topics, including WordPress website hosting. You can earn money from your articles through advertising revenue and affiliate links.
  5. Reddit – Reddit is a popular social news aggregation and discussion website that allows you to post articles and participate in discussions related to your industry.
  6. EzineArticles – EzineArticles is a popular article directory that allows you to submit articles for free. Your articles will be published on the site and may be picked up by other websites and blogs.
  7. AllTop – AllTop is a content aggregator that collects articles from a wide range of sources. You can submit your articles for consideration and if they are selected, they will be featured on the site.

 

Honestly, I’m not sure I need any more than this. These mostly all look like great places for me to post articles for free.

I’m hoping to start posting one article each week, whether on my own website or on others.

At this point, it would probably be best to focus on getting backlinks from other websites.

I have a great idea for a new post about optimizing your business to get the best sale price, and I think it would be a good one to get on a high-profile website like Medium.

I’ll post back here with results.

 

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Thoughts About a Potential Improvement System

I just happened to read my post about how a weight training system helped me quite a bit and then mused that I should have something similar for improvements in my business and personally. Then I read the following post which had more ideas about what I could put together.

And those were both way back in 2020 and I haven’t done anything yet.

Well, while I was reading I had some ideas. What if I put together some sort of end-of-day (or maybe start-of-day?) ranking system that lists all of my current initiatives and then I rate myself on how I’m doing on them.

Perhaps weekly, I could remove things that are no longer important initiatives.

And that’s it, that would be the system.

Why would this work?

First, it would keep things very simple. I don’t like the idea of a clumsy, complicated system that’s a lot of work to manage.

But what would make it effective would be the following:

  1. It would keep all important initiatives top-of-mind
  2. It would help me track how they are going over time
  3. It would motivate me to actually make progress so that I can put good numbers down

The last one is probably the most important. This has worked with my daily survey I fill out personally, because every time I put down bad numbers I feel guilty or ashamed, and every time I put down good numbers I feel accomplished.

It motivates me to get those good numbers.

So what would I put on this list?

It would be things like new habits I’m trying to develop, long-term efforts like trying to find and purchase other website hosting companies or setting up my fine art photography website, and possibly short-term projects as well.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the perfect time to respond to this daily questionnaire would be when I’m putting together my to-do list for the day. This happens almost every single day, usually late in the morning.

I think I would phrase the question like, “How do you think you performed  yesterday with regard to the following projects:” and then it would list each of them on a 1-10 scale.

If I didn’t do any work at all on a project, that’s a 1. If I did minimal, maybe higher.

Or for a habit, if I failed at it completely, that’s a 1. I suppose if I did it but it wasn’t great, that’s a… 5 or 6. If it was fully engrained and went perfectly, that’s a 10.

I think this could actually work quite nicely. I just need to decide how I want to do it. I use Google forms for my other questionnaire but I don’t love it. It could get a little weird over time as I’m adding and removing initiatives, too.

But, I think it’s worth a shot at least to start. I’ll make a note to start it up in a couple weeks when I’m back from Mendoza and we’ll see how it goes.

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Interesting Business Model – hostadvice.com

I use the site hostadvice.com quite a bit to quickly determine where a website is being hosted. It’s not perfect but it’s a nice thing to have in your back pocket.

(Side note: I just submitted my own business to their site in the hopes of getting a backlink which would be extremely useful – might need to look up other lists of hosts and submit myself)

I was using it today and I realized how brilliant of a business strategy it is.

Basically they provide a simple, free tool (the ability to check who hosts a website) and then over additional information and affiliate links off of that.

They get tons of traffic and links with their tool, which helps them also rank highly for other hosting-related keywords.

They don’t really have customers at all. They just sell other people’s products and profit from that.

It’s brilliant!

I would love to do something like that. Build some kind of basic tool that does something people really want, and then build a whole affiliate marketing site off of it.

It checks all of the boxes of my dream job: no sales, no clients, no boss, no employees (potentially), no schedule, and fully remote.

The site is basically a glorified online directory, but with this tool it becomes quite legitimate.

I don’t currently have any ideas of what I could do along those lines but I should keep my eyes peeled for anything like that, and certainly start thinking about what I might be able to put together along those same lines.