Fiona Boyd: Welcome today to Phil Grant, Managing Partner at Nexia ASR. Hi, Phil.

Phil Grant: Hi Fiona, how are you doing?

Fiona: I’m good. Look, the word on everyone’s lips at this time of year is, of course, tax time. I took a call from Michael, who works with you at Nexia ASR, and he said to shoot our accounts over so he could take a look, and have a think about a bit of tax planning, make sure everything’s in order and right for the end of the financial year. And everyone’s going to be in that situation, aren’t they? So I’m just wondering – what is it that accountants are looking for in May/June, in order to make sure that their clients are sitting right to prepare the end of financial year accounts?

Phil: I think what we’re looking for, is just to get a picture of how things have travelled. We might have a high-level idea about where things are at, but it’s more about understanding at a more defined level, what the numbers are likely to roll out as. And to make sure that whatever needs to be done, pre 3rd June – and, truthfully, there isn’t a huge amount that can be done. If you intend to make a superannuation contribution and you haven’t done so, that needs to be paid before 30^th June. If you need to make sure you’ve picked up all your expenses that need to be captured… things like that. It’s really a bit of housekeeping. Truthfully, there isn’t a lot that can be done to reduce tax in a legal manner. The idea is to get information, so then we can at least project forward what we think the likely tax liability’s going to be, and then inform you what the likely tax obligation’s going to be over the next twelve months or so. So it’s really to keep the client informed about where they sit, because ultimately, it’s cashflow planning.

Fiona: Is it a bit of a prompt, as well? Because I had a stash of cash receipts – i.e., where David and I had spent our personal money on business items, we’d used cash – and I had a stash of those that went back to last July. And I went, okay Michael, I actually have to write these up and get these into the accounts! Other businesses would be like that too, surely?

Phil: And that’s housekeeping. It’s just making sure that you’ve captured everything that needs to be captured. It’s a good time to do it. I mean, the reality is, for those type of items, if you’ve spent the money already it doesn’t really matter when you process them. But, no doubt, there’ll be some GST involved, and you want to claim that back too before the end of the year. So this, it is housekeeping, and it’s good to capture that information while it’s relatively fresh in your mind, rather than waiting later when you forget about it and you miss out, and it’s too late. Look, it is just an opportunity just to take stock and just to make sure that your records are in order. We can then cast our eye over it, we can do a bit of a projection to the end of the financial year, make an assessment about how perhaps we ought to deal with income, if it needs to be distributed, if you’re in a trust structure how it’d be managed. There are lots of, there are recent changes in the tax rules regarding companies and the treatment of distribution.

Fiona: That means distributions have to be actually distributed.

Phil: No, no they don’t but as of yesterday a final tax ruling was issued, which we’re all trying to get our heads around, which may mean that you have to do something like that. But, look, it’s good to simply touch base, and just to see, what position am I in, and what do I need to do? It might be nothing or it might be something, so…unfortunately we do have a drop-dead date of 30^th June and some things will have to be done by 30^th June – every client’s in a different situation. But, to me, it’s more about if you’re structure’s right – and I’m, as you know, very big on structure – the rest should look after itself. So, the housekeeping needs to be done, and then you just sort of say, well what’s the end result, what’s the bottom line result? And then, how are we going to manage it? Then we transpose that into a tax cashflow for the client, so they know they can plan with the next 12 months cashflow what their obligations will be. Because, as you know, yes you pay some tax along the way, but there’s always a bit of a catch-up sometimes, the business is always changing. So it’s a matter of making sure the clients clearly know where they’re at.

Fiona: How does the ATO deal with that? Because business is so much more dynamic now, isn’t it, that ups and downs can happen at a much faster rate than even 10 years ago. When you were on the slide, then it might’ve taken six months, but you can hit a wall in a week in current times. How does the ATO get their head around the fact that business patterns really have changed – and it’s a lot more volatile and dynamic?

Phil: Well, we have a system where we pay tax quarterly, through what’s called the PAYG system, Pay As You Go system and that’s based on the most recently revised information at the tax office. So typically that might be based on your prior year’s activity, and as you rightly say, your prior year’s activity might not be a reflection of your current year’s activity, so there is the ability to vary those instalments based on current activity. And you need to take care – because if you over-vary you can get penalties for underpaying tax along the way. But there is the ability to communicate to the tax office that your circumstances have changed and your tax obligations should reduce. But it’s a matter of managing that – and that’s part of our job, to help manage that, so we can sort of steer it in the right way, so you’re not paying too much, you’re paying the right amount at the right time. Because it ultimately comes back down to managing cashflow.

Fiona: Just one more thing to do with the tax office, it being tax time: we had a letter a few months ago from the tax office and it was about income that we’d been receiving from overseas and that was earned income from an overseas client that we were consulting to. Maybe you could explain a bit more about what’s going on there, because I know that others have received – others I know have received a similar letter too. And they’re doing business online and a lot of their income comes from the States, rather than Australia.

Phil: Sure. Well, the government, through AUSTRAC, monitors any significant sums which flow cross-border. And a lot of that’s to do with, you know, money laundering, terrorism, all those horrible things.

Fiona: The bad stuff.

Phil: The bad stuff, that 99 per cent of us, I hope, are not involved in.

Fiona: Not normal commerce.

Phil: That’s right. And of course it is a mechanism for tracking undisclosed income if it is not disclosed in tax returns. So you’ve just got to be conscious that you might get a letter, and as you recall, I think the letter said it’s all fine, there’s nothing to communicate, it’s all about voluntary disclosure, you don’t do anything, just move on, and obviously in your situation, that’ll be disclosed as income and tax will be paid on it accordingly. So there’s really nothing to be concerned about, just something to be conscious of. Yes, they are watching, it is Big Brother and they are watching, and significant transactions are being tracked and today’s environment, it’s all electronic – most of it’s electronic – and they’ll see everything that’s going through everyone’s bank accounts and they’ll ask questions where they think it’s warranted.

Fiona: I actually don’t have a problem with that. I think if you’re running your business – as you say, if you’re structured right and your business is working, or you’re working to make it work – then why would that be a problem?

Phil: I guess it’s not a problem, as long as it doesn’t become too overbearing. Then it just becomes another thing you’ve got deal with which really gets in the way of you dealing with what’s important, which is running your business.

Fiona: Thank you for your time today, Phil.

Phil: Pleasure. Thanks, Fiona.

Fiona: I’ve been speaking to Phil Grant who is managing partner at Nexia ASR, a boutique accounting firm in Melbourne.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

In previous posts I’ve written cautioning about not getting too excited about starting a new project with someone you haven’t done work with before, but instead to take some time to work out whether they’re going to be a good sandpit player and whether you can work effectively together.

It can of course be a unique opportunity to work with a hand-picked team on a very special project, however, no matter how well-resourced and how groovy that project is, if some of the collaborators in the team have hidden agendas and aren’t able to fully bring themselves to the team, then the project is likely to be challenging, difficult and maybe even impossible to bring to completion.

Given that there are new players constantly coming and going in the world of startup business and that many more who’ve been around for some time and are still trying to work out how to find their groove, I thought I might share my Ten Rules for Great Sandpit Play.

1.     Be honest – by this I mean be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Why are you here? What is it about this opportunity to play in the sandpit with these people that really excites you? What are you hoping to learn from being part of this? What are you happy to bring to the equation and what is a no go area? This rule is all about you and it’s all about getting clear on your purpose and motivation and why you’ve agreed to play in this deal. Know your own mind, then you will have a much better idea of where the boundaries lie for you.

2.     Don’t hide your agenda – if you have other reasons for playing in the sandpit, state them upfront. Don’t confuse those around you by making them have to second guess why you’re really there. This wastes team energy and motivation. If there’s something else you’d like to get out of this play, then say so. Nothing is more confusing than a group of individuals all with hidden agendas purportedly getting together for a joint purpose, that has no chance of ever getting up because just about everyone’s hidden agenda is taking them in an opposite direction.

3.     Be fair – don’t expect more of others than you do of yourself. And always give your best. A most irritating sandpit player is he who gives little but judges the output of others a lot. The critic often has too much time on their hands and if they were giving their fullest contribution, there wouldn’t be time to judge others harshly. If others in your sandpit have done particularly well with part of the project, then again, be fair. Let them know you notice and appreciate their work – share their success warmly without trying to take it over.

4.     Respect Yourself – sometimes business play can be rough and other participants don’t always interact or communicate respectfully or fairly. Many self-help books and psychology professionals will say that it’s not the situation at hand that’s bad but the way you react to it that is. To this, I say piffle! When playing in the sandpit always conduct yourself with integrity. Respect the rights of others – but if you’re being pushed around or manipulated then respect yourself and firmly state your misgivings. At times, stern words backed up with intent can be a very quick way to get the team back playing on the same field. At worst, you’ve stood up for your dignity as a person – if that is not respected then it may be time to find a new sandpit to play in.

5.      Respect the other players – if you’ve pulled a great team together because of known skills and capacities then don’t forget this important fact. As time goes on and the project progresses another player’s worth does not diminish because you now understand better how they achieve what they do. Respect others and their methods and processes – don’t try make them be as you are and follow your pathways and methods.

To have great collaborations you need some sandpit play rules.

6.     Disagree respectfully– your project will not fail if you disagree on certain aspects of the project and vote to move on as a team. If all can disagree respectfully and then choose a course of action, knowing that it isn’t totally agreed on but is supported by the group – then you will still have the option up your sleeve of revisiting the discounted courses of action later should you decide you’ve taken the wrong path. It’s not necessary that anyone’s nose is whacked out of joint or that participants feel they must  fight to the death to have their path adopted.

7.     Be equal to all – too many projects I’ve been involved with have wantonly squandered my enthusiasm and positive energy (factors which make me work faster, quicker and better) because others on the team were trying to position each player into some kind of ‘pecking order’ that made sense to them. We are not hens – we do not need to be pecked by others. Showing mutual regard to other players and seeing them as equals will ensure that everyone can produce at top speed without being in fear of the politicking ‘weirdo’ who’s trying to position themselves above everybody else.

8.     Learn, learn, learn – no-one is born knowing everything. The answers aren’t always out there already, there’s often an opportunity for you to create a new way of achieving an outcome or getting to a result. Open your mind up to watching and learning from the others you’re playing in the sandpit with. We can learn so much vicariously, by just being open-minded, supportive and noticing the multitude of ways that others go about things to get a result. If your fellow players trust you and are not threatened by you, then they won’t mind you learning from their mistakes, in fact there’ll be stories you can share for years going forward.

9.     Be kind – one of the most undersold qualities in business is that of kindness. I know of several very successful business people who have none of the negative qualities that we often associate with ‘good businesspeople’. What they do have and share with each other is an attitude of ‘kindness’ to the world around them and all the people they deal with. A few gracious words when another is struggling, buying a coffee, drink or meal for that member of the team who’s working through the night to pull off something remarkable for the group. These acts of kindness help keep the flow of life moving through the sandpit players.

10.  Be grateful – if you know you’re blessed to be working with the people you do on the projects or business you are working on, then be grateful. There’s nothing more negating than the person who misses the fact that they’re part of something really notable and remarkable – that all of life is just a grey blur to be treated with the same level of low regard. If you’re achieving great things together and really like working together then acknowledge that – be grateful, it really isn’t going to go to someone’s head if you tell them how fabulous it is to work with them. Seriously, they are more likely to count their blessings that they get to work with such a great sandpit player as you.

These are my rules for great sandpit play. If there are special rules that you have and you just know are vital to being a great player in that vast sandpit that is business and life, please leave your comments below. I welcome your insights.

Photo: flickr fotographix.ca

Fiona Boyd and David Eedle write about many sandpit encounters in their book Niche Content Millionaire – the story of the startup, growth and sale of their online venture, Arts Hub.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

Michel Hogan, founder of Brandology will join Fiona Boyd regularly in 2010 to talk all matters ‘brand’.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

Incidentally, I did ring Bigpond, our ISP. A nice woman asked “what colour is the DSL light” (red); “do you have a dial tone on the phone line” (yes); “is the modem properly connected to the phone socket” (yes). “OK, I’ll have to escalate this to our Level 2 support, someone will call you within two working days”. Fabulous, given this was a Friday.

This morning’s shenanigans are a reminder of just how dependent many of us are on constant internet connectivity, and our technological tools. Yet how many of us really exploit those tools in a way that truly improves our productivity and organization as entrepreneurs?

I spend my day with my MacBook and iPhone surgically attached. If you totalled up my waking hours, I spend more time on my Mac than I do with Fiona and our kids. It’s a tight relationship, tempered with the occasional outburst when the gadgets seem to be channelling our children and refuse to behave.

I thought I’d share with you some of the software tools and systems that I’ve gathered over the years, and that through trial and much error have proven to offer real benefits.

Please bear in mind I use a MacBook Pro as my primary computer, although thanks to the joy of Parallels software I also have Windows running on my Mac. Also please note that most of these software packages do require you to pay – but it’s generally a modest fee, usually around $US50.

1. Things
www.culturedcode.com

I’ve tried all sorts of To Do systems from Outlook’s Tasks to various task managers, but the one that’s held my attention longest is Things. It’s one of the simplest task managers, but it’s that simplicity, teamed with a delightfully designed interface that’s given it longevity.

Stay organised with Things

I can load up tasks with ‘do by’ dates, tag them, and organise them by project. The entries are flagged and colour coded according to whether they are overdue or not. I can quickly pull up a timeline-based list of tasks and work through in order.

There is an accompanying iPhone application that synchronizes via my Wi Fi network, so I can keep my tasks up to date either from my phone or my Mac. The only thing missing is OTA (over the air) synchronization, where they could stay up to date wherever my phone is located.

2. Evernote
www.evernote.com

Evernote is the newest addition to the stable, and came about through a strong recommendation from a good friend. Evernote is a sort of electronic ring binder and filing cabinet. Essentially you can write notes in a notebook, accompanied by pictures and files. You can have any number of notebooks and any number of notes.

It’s dead easy to use, yet has a remarkable range of functionality. I can type in a note, drag and drop in a PDF or other document, take a photo, clip a web page – and then email the note to someone.

There’s a very good iPhone application as well, with complete OTA synchronization, so everything stays in sync between the phone and Mac all of the time.

I’ve always been one to lug around an A4 workbook and write notes during meetings and phone calls. Now I almost exclusively work directly into Evernote. I’m writing this blog post based on a bunch of notes I wrote in Evernote the other day.

You can even send notes into your notebooks via Twitter and email – brilliant.

3. omniGraffle
www.omnigraffle.com

A great deal of my time is spent interacting with customers and writing and scoping and specifications to interpret their needs into a logically, and technically, based framework.

omniGraffle produces easily produces terrific looking flowcharts and diagrams

omniGraffle is a flow chart and diagram drawing program. There are plenty out there – many people will have met the Microsoft Visio product.

Being a male, I tend to think in very linear fashion – which means I mentally flowchart lots of things. Often if I’m in a discussion with someone about how to go about a certain task, I’ll sketch up the process in omniGraffle, to break down the workflow into manageable and distinct segments.

omniGraffle both has a cool name, and effortlessly produces really good looking diagrams. It has several layers of complexity but even if all you want to do is draw a simple flowchart for a presentation, it offers a great range of stencils and templates, including ones created by third parties – for example, I have stencils created by someone especially for outlining web pages.

4. Skype
www.skype.com

Whilst I realize it would to difficult to find someone who’s not heard of Skype, I’m not sure everyone understands just how powerful a business tool Skype can be. Did you know you can do all this with Skype?

Desktop Sharing – the latest version of Skype allows you at the click of a button show your desktop to the person at the other end of the line. Perfect for presentations, demonstrations – or as with us the other day, me showing Fiona how to do something, despite the fact I was in San Francisco and she was in Melbourne.

Voicemail – yup, Skype has voicemail just like your cell phone. You record a greeting, and if you don’t answer a call, people can leave a message.

Call forwarding – I have my Skype forwarding to my cell phone, so I can be away from my computer but still receive calls.

Skype Out – you can make calls from Skype to regular phones. And their international call rates are terrific compared to the normal phone companies.

Skype In – Skype can provide you with a local phone number in countries around the world. Someone calls that number, and it rings your Skype. I have a local number in San Francisco for example.

5. 1Password
agilewebsolutions.com

Ever forgotten a password for a web site? Not any more. I have LOTS of passwords to LOTS of websites, administration systems and so on. But I hardly know what any of them are. Because it’s all handled with smooth aplomb by 1password. The software creates and stores very secure passwords (eg lots of letters and numbers) that you could never recall in a month of Sundays. You access 1Password with a single password. But then when you return to a web site for which the program has previously saved a password, you click a button and it logs you in.

Never forget a password again

1Password doesn’t just handle passwords, it can also securely store bank account, credit card and other personal identity information.

There you have it, the five tools I use almost every minute of the day, every day. And I can testify that these gadgets really do make sense, and do save time. They help me work more efficiently, they help me interact with the people I do business.

There is a whole other list of little software tools I use for web development (how does any web developer exist without Firebug for example?) but we’ll save those for another day. Don’t want to scare the non-geeks too much.

I should just reinforce that many of these products are for Apple Macs. And I make no apologies for taking a partisan approach. I’ve experimented, and on occasion wasted money, to whittle down to the right combination. Some do require purchase, but even those will offer a free trial so you can give them a go for a couple of weeks and evaluate whether they can improve your entrepreneurial efficiency.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

Entrepreneur and founder of Rentoid and Startup blog, Steve Sammartino will join us again in coming weeks to talk more about startup business.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

If you’ve been to St Kilda in Melbourne, you would most likely have stumbled across the Dogs Bar on Acland Street – a famous institution founded by a food and wine visionary who has sadly passed, and a bit of a hangout for those of a creative ilk. This is where we had our ebullient and refreshing conversation.

My fellow chinwagger was the very fascinating, Steve Sammartino, who two years ago and after feeling compressed and suppressed by the corporate world, took his rather extraordinary marketing skills and went and started up a really neat venture, Rentoid.com. It’s essentially a classifieds business for the rental space and allows those with stuff to rent, and those needing stuff on a non-permanent basis to connect up and do a trade. It’s a great way for you to either earn, or save money, depending on which side of the transaction you’re sitting.

As Steve and I were talking we bemoaned the amount of blogs out there in the blogosphere written by people who had no real experience of what it was they were claiming to be guru’s or experts on, and that the best blogs we’d come across were written by those actually doing the thing they wrote about, or who had done it. Steve is a man ahead of his time in many ways and way back at the start-up of Rentoid he realized that whatever he was to learn with his venture, could be really useful knowledge for others involved in a start-up – hence his blog – startupblog.com.

What's your sequence?

One of the issues Steve has with Rentoid.com is that he’s achieved amazing and wonderful growth in the business but has a gut instinct that there’s much, much more to be had, and whilst Rentoid’s growing in a solid organic way, like all internet entrepreneurs he was waiting for the moment when things went ballistic. My mentor who is a genius in the sphere of economics, working out business models and sequences and is sought after around the world for his thoughts on convergence and innovation, Dr Terry Cutler, had long described the benefits of the right kind of internet business as offering ‘non-linear scaling off the asset base’. In other words, you can justify a hockey stick revenue and even profit projection in your business plan, because if you get your model and your sequence right your costs should not scale in line with your profits. This model is almost, but not quite, fixed cost – with revenue and profits growing exponentially.

The more we talked, the more it struck me that Steve’s issue in achieving those hockey stick projections, just had to do with reordering the sequence of events that happens to the customer when they’re on Rentoid. Which again reminded me of ideas drilled into my head over many lunches around the Cutler & Co. board table, with Dr Cutler marker in hand, detailing the specific steps and the rationale for their order for each sequence of events that was key in whatever internet venture we were working on that day.

Sequences are important in all aspects of our lives, but are really key in an internet business. When we started Arts Hub we thought very specifically about what exactly customers would do when they came to our product, what information we should give them and at what point should we try to convince them to buy, and then what was the shortest but most secure sequence we could use to get them to complete the membership sign-up. Believe me, we spent a lot of time on working out our sequences, and testing and refining them. One of the early faultlines we identified was in the first version of the site and that was when we saw visitors would back out at step three in a four step transaction process. There could have been any number of reasons for this, including that they had never intended to purchase and were just curious, but we decided to go with the theory that there were too many steps involved and each additional step over what the customer thought was necessary, was a turnoff for them. We reduced the number of steps by one and hey presto – we reduced the number of those not completing the transaction by 50%.

I remember we also experimented a bit with the sequence taking the customer to sign up for a membership and our experience was, and this is in direct contrast to those who use long sequences and vast amounts of text to seduce you into buying, that a quick, straight up sequence was best. In terms of Arts Hub, by the time the visitor came to our site they had already heard about us from a trusted offline source, and were ready to join – what we needed to do, was get out of the way of them signing up. So we reduced our marketing guff to virtually zero and let the customer get on with transacting (in 3 steps) and joining.

Another sequence we tested, and this was in the first months of our site when lots of experts and busybodies turned up to tell us, unsolicited, how to run our business. In the face of all this interference, we actually succumbed to one of the suggestions of a kindly ‘expert’ which was to drop our direct transaction process and instead offer a free trial, then seek to convert these trials after 4 weeks. I still can feel my stomach fall through the floor when I remember this time. We followed this guy’s sequence and our revenue dropped to zero for the four weeks, and then during the fifth week, we made some sales via conversions. The only problem is that they were about a fifth of what we had been signing before trying the trial system.

Needless to say, we reverted in week six to our original sequence, which was

1) arrive at our site – full content on front page but you can’t click through for full details unless you’re logged in

2) when you try click thru to full details, you get the explanation and the Join Now button

3) if you don’t try click through, the Join Now button is the most obvious icon on the page – right hand side column

4) click Join Now

5) goes to transaction page – give customer info and payment details

6) transaction approved

7) full site content appears

This sequence was only changed once after this time and that was in response to feedback from our annual Members Survey, that the transaction process was a little cold. So we had a picture of either myself with a caption saying ‘we bring you the latest in arts news’ or our Executive Producer, Rita Dimasi, with the caption ‘Arts Hub helps you get a job’ and of course the Join Now button.

Not all content sites are membership based, as Arts Hub was, so in the case of a classifieds site like Rentoid.com I’d be inclined to ask questions about two sets of sequences a) for the person who is listing and b) for the person who’s interested in buying/renting the listed item. Both should have a sequence that is directly relevant to where their activity sits within the website overall. It is also important to think about the transaction and who pays who – there are all sorts of models available but it’s worth making the point that your site should charge the customer who has the most to gain from your site. I would argue in the classifieds model, that you should charge the lister a fee and that the potential buyers/renters should be able to see the wares for free. If you charge the potential buyers they will feel like they’re being hit twice for the pleasure of transacting firstly by your site and second time by the guy they bought/rented the listed goodies off.

There’s obviously no hard and fast rule here – but in order to get your sequence to transaction absolutely optimized I would encourage you to think about the different ways in which your site is used and work your sequences to get the customer (whichever side of the trade) to where they ideally want to be, as quickly as possible.

I also think it’s important to keep your guff to a minimum. If your sequence is rock solid, and makes sense, you don’t need much by way of explanation. And if someone is not transacting today, they may be a looker, it doesn’t mean their visit is wasted, if your customer experience and sequence to what they want is smoothe, they will remember you when they need to rent/buy or list an item. Every visit that doesn’t end in a transaction should be considered a research visit and an opportunity to show how smoothely business is done on your site.

On another note, David and I have been out and about recently and have enjoyed meeting some of our blog readers, so we know that many of you are internet people and many others run offline businesses. I would therefore like to provoke you to consider this question – what is the most important sequence in your business/site/blog’s operation and are the steps of the sequence in the optimum order to maximize your success and profits? Any stories you’d like to share, we’d love to showcase or case study you. Please get in touch via the comment section if you’re willing to share your story.

Image: Flickr vermininc

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

Brian Clark’s report, is called “Forget Everything You Know About Making Money Online…And Start Making Some”. To get it you do need to sign up for priority notification for a new course Brian is selling, but hey, everyone needs an economic model and I was interested to find out Brian’s thoughts.

If you’re reading this you probably know that my partner, David Eedle and I did actually make really good money online from a niche content business for the arts worker market, called Arts Hub. But unlike lots of the processes and systems that are making the rounds as I write, this was a bona fide real business, with real ongoing processes and real people and as it grew, real staff. So, I get quite upset when I read posts that say you can make money without doing any real work, just by following someone else’s system. My gut tells me that by the time someone is willing to tell you how it works, it’s no longer working for them. They’re just using their results to sell the sizzle of a process that is now spent and has no real value for anyone.

We wrote a book about the actual work involved with starting up and growing Arts Hub to profitability and then selling it. It’s worth a read if you want some real nuts and bolts of what entrepreneurs go through to create a robust, viable online content business – and no there are no gimmicks, we give you insights, but you’re the boss, it’s your gig to apply the knowledge shared in the way you think is most relevant to you. Enough said about our stuff.

To Brian’s stuff – he’s saying a lot of what David and I talk about in our book. Closed systems and processes burn themselves out, they are of limited value and only to the first movers – universal systems are the same organic ones that business has always been about. Find an idea or product, match it up with customers, sell, distribute, make money. Full stop – sure there are lots of tricks, but that is your sequence.

Next era of knowledge transfer on the way?

Brian’s report seems to be saying that the next generation of online content is about to move into the area of knowledge sharing, and that you can say goodbye to free. Future customers will pay for the knowledge and skills-based content that skillful content creators and packagers put together. As a former high school teacher, I’m quite excited about that notion as I’ve long thought the systems for education and knowledge delivery are owned by the wrong people. That’s what’s made me a big fan of the likes of Tony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki – these are independent people who’ve developed really specific knowledge in certain areas, and for a fee you can buy some of that knowhow from them by way of a book, audiotape, seminar etc.

If Brian is right and the next revolution online is an education revolution, then that puts Robbins and Kiyosaki way ahead of their time. No, these guys were not part of the government-funded education and university system as we know it, they were not even able to use online to start their businesses. They did it the hard way, in the offline world, building up respect for their knowhow and concepts one customer, one seminar group at a time. They were/are people with knowledge, really detailed knowledge, who found the processes to deliver that knowledge, for a fee, to as many people who were interested in it as possible.

So, in our time, what is possible? I’m starting to warm to Brian Clark and the ideas behind ‘Teaching Sells’, it does make sense that the next move online might be towards knowledge and knowhow propagation and that the same old issues with content still apply. That is, where do you get the stuff that has already been curated and roadtested so that you’re not wading through the irrelevant and the cranky. Arts Hub did that – we both created unique content and aggregated available stories, always under the watchful eye of the Editor. Poorly written or litigious content never made it to air – our Editor did her job ruthlessly, which means she did it well. The content was invariably always good and that’s why our members paid Arts Hub an annual fee to be part of this world.

I’m interested to find out what you think – are you willing to pay for knowledge-based content from a source you trust? What areas would interest you the most?

So, I’m going to keep an eye on Brian Clark and ‘Teaching Sells’ –maybe he’s right, maybe the next wave of online content evolution is about to hit the shore and it’s time to think about what I might know, that you don’t, that you might want to pay me to find out more about. And vice versa.

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Her blog post is called “What to look for in a coach” and whilst it is just a short and sharp post, it cracks to the point and wastes no energy on equivocation. Maybe it’s my job to do that.

Basically Kirsty is saying that in a world where the buyer needs to beware when purchasing services, you have every right to ask the person seeking to sell something to you, what their specific experience and credentials are in that area. It’s okay to be cautious, it’s okay to not jump on the bandwagon. Maybe you’ll miss out on the next big thing, or maybe you won’t – but at least you are in control of your decisions and deciding who you will trust.

Dr Wayne Dyer also calls into question this notion of trust in his audio book, Inspiration Your Ultimate Calling – a rather great listen that I had on replay for pretty much the first half of this year. Dyer at one point talks about when you really need to get clear and honest information about or for yourself, who do you go to? Is it someone who will tell you you’re fine, all’s great, just sign here and your anxieties will fade, or is it the person who tells you the truth as they see it? His years as a psychologist led him to the answer that those in need actually want to hear the truth about the reality of things – not someone’s comforting dismissal. That when life counts in large amounts, we can handle the unpalatable truth if it’s what we need to hear in order to change or correct course and get back towards our true purpose.

Trust us - we're experts

As Kirsty highlights, she wouldn’t ever hire a business coach who hadn’t run a business themselves, or a trainer who wasn’t fit. Her point is that with franchise systems, people with no background in an area can simply set up their business and start selling an expertise that there is no guarantee that they truly have. And as someone who loves Twitter a lot, and spends a heap of time there looking for people with similar interests and worldviews, I’m constantly astounded at the claims of some Twitter profiles. I mean, if you are 19 you really don’t have enough real world experience to advise anyone on anything much, let alone really important life-changing stuff. So why claim to be a guru, why not say you’re just starting out and learning?

I still remember the days when I worked with ABC Radio and old hands were endlessly quizzing me on my background and training. In fact, because there was little formal training available in the 1980s, most were gobsmacked that I’d received hundreds of hours of on-camera studio experience while studying in the first intake ever of Media Performance students at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). I must admit it was disconcerting to be endlessly grilled by those hoping to slip up the next generation of broadcasters, but it seemed to come with the patch in dealing with ageing broadcasters who believed the industry was born with them, and would die with them too.

It is quite different now, people with very little training in anything have no sense that calling themselves a master of something actually might require some proof. This is not to discourage anyone who is just starting out online and wanting to make it in the niche they’ve chosen – everyone starts somewhere, but hey, why not be honest about that? If you’re just starting out, say so, and tell us that this is an experiment for you, let us in on the secret of what you find out along the way, and do that in a way that makes sense, has the ring-of-truth to it, and is your honest account, and guess what? We’re probably going to love you for it!

Now, one of the big bugbears in my life is the fact that BC (before children) I weighed a certain amount, did a bit of exercise, ate way more than I do now and was generally in much better physical shape than today. After children, I’m carrying 12 kg more weight, exercise enormous amounts with not great results and get through most days feeling like a sack of potatoes. Don’t get me wrong, with a BMI of 23.1% I am neither technically overweight or obese, I’m just lugging too much extra around the middle to feel truly comfortable. I’m also creaking a lot – bending down is a pain, I can hear my hips crunch when I get up from a chair.

In 2004 at the Adelaide Arts Festival I was having a chat with Stephen Page, the then festival Director and the genius behind Bangarra Dance Theatre. As a former dancer he had a number of moves he used to keep fit. I bemoaned the fact that Pilates was the best I’d been able to come up with and that I really longed for those days in my teens at ballet doing endless matwork. I was sure all those really tough stretches and the resistance involved contributed enormously to a great muscle structure which in turn kept my weight down. He agreed that matwork and barre work were probably all you needed to keep a really limber body and we both moved on and forgot about our discussion. By the way, Stephen is the only person on the planet I have met to date who is born on the same day, in the same year. Our difference was we were born 12 hours apart, I think he was the elder.

Where am I going with this? Well I wish I could say that I’ve tried a million diets and have found the ‘one’ that works. This isn’t true, I’ve not tried many, the only one that worked was the CSIRO Diet, but the problem is there’s a lot of first quality protein involved and that makes it an expensive diet to follow. I lost about 6kg on the CSIRO Diet, but that was it, and it was only halfway to my goal. Since then I just really eat what I like and try not to overeat too often – and I’m 3kg heavier. So, mmmh all the restriction and extra protein, maybe it wasn’t necessary?

I’ve long had the sneaking suspicion that my weight gain is about movement or more correctly, my lack of moving through a full range of movement. In my teens I used to frequent a nightclub called the Red Parrot and many of us would dance all night in the wildest, most alternative ways, I’m sure this is what made me super fit.

So, let’s now intro someone who I do trust and my reason for trusting her. Tracy Anderson is a personal trainer to Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow, that’s it, just two clients. She also runs a dance studio in New York and in the summer of 2008 ran a bootcamp for local women who did a three-hour session with her after work, five nights a week for two weeks. She makes no massive claims beyond saying that in real-life research she’s done on herself and with other women over the past 12 years, she’s figured out how to create a dancer’s body for a woman who’s willing to do the work. That’s right, there’s work involved, this is not done without putting in a serious amount of effort. You can find out more about her story here in the About section, but I’d like to mention that Tracy’s credibility for me is way more than the fact she has famous clients, it’s that her own personal journey in her late teens as a dancer, led her on a mission to find out what the mechanics of creating a dancer’s body were, and developing a system around this. Hats off to Tracy because isn’t that what so many women want? And she figured this out because she was intrigued, curious and needed to sort her own shape out or she could keep her dance scholarship.

I have now purchased two of Tracy Anderson’s dvd’s and have made my way only through the mat work one. It is the closest thing to an extreme ballet matwork session, the sort of thing Stephen Page and I spoke of years ago, that I have come across. It is the real deal, after two sessions I am sore, I can’t get all the way through, it is difficult, but my muscles are pulling back into shape and I feel strength coming back into my limbs and core. I’m going to stick with this because given Tracy’s journey and her quest I believe her when she says if you do the work, her method will help you create your own version of a dancer’s body. Plus, Stephen and I sort of had the same idea back in 2004, so maybe we’re all on the same page, so to speak!

Give me three months and I’ll let you know whether the Tracy Anderson Method works or not. One thing I do know, Tracey Anderson has exactly the sort of credentials I’m looking for when I’m seeking advice from someone. Passion, curiosity, her own skin in the game, some science or discovery learning, and no claims of how easy it will be. It won’t, she’s clear, this method requires ‘hard work’.

I guess that’s my point really, if you’re going to take advice from anyone, make sure they’ve put the work in and got some results to show you.

If you’d like to share the stories of those who you really trust and why, make sure you comment. Likewise if there’s someone with no experience and no track history claiming to be a guru – uncloak them here at www.nichecontentmillionaire.com

Want to test out Tracy Anderson’s excercises? Have a go at this.

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Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

The speakers included, Darren Rouse – Problogger, Amanda Gome – Smart Company and Ross Hill – owner of yabble.com.au, rentoid.com and other ventures.

There were a couple of things said by the speakers that grabbed my attention that related directly to my own experience, and I thought I’d go into these in a bit more detail in today’s post.

Firstly, the company that David and I are known for is the online subscription site for artsworkers called Arts Hub. We started as a free jobs list in April 2000, and sold as a paid subscription business with thousands of subscribers in July 2006. I’ll tell you more about that later.

We converted 30% of our membership website subscribers to paid subscribers.

But it was Amanda who really made me startle when she mentioned at Blog Smog that the only site she knew that had successfully made the transition from free to pay, was Arts Hub. It made me reflect back to the time when we actually ran the conversion process, what we did and how we managed to convert around 30% of our free list to paid subscribers.

And continuing with paid content, Darren Rouse of Problogger gave a bit of a news alert when he said that he would be launching a premium version of Problogger that would indeed be for paying subscribers and which would allow them better access direct to him, each other and to high-end specialized content.

Returning to Arts Hub then, exactly what was it that we did that enabled us to convert 30% of our freebie subscribers into paid subscribers over a 12 week period? Firstly, I must state that our whole campaign was mapped out on one page and I doubt we referred to that page more than a couple of times, clearly the success was not in excessive and detailed planning.

What on reflection, I believe was key in the conversion process, was that we made it fun, we had great prizes for those who converted, and the new site had a lot of additional value, such as up-to-the-minute news content and forums.

The Jobs Bulletin started in April 2000 and was sent to 17 recipients via email. By the end of August of that year we had around 3000 receiving the Bulletin and growing. It was at this time that David and I decided that if we wanted to be more than a weekly Jobs List, we would need to execute a way of getting the folk on the list to pay.

We had done some action research in 1999 and 2000 about what the arts industry needed in terms of information and the same results kept on being repeated – jobs and real arts news. Jobs was easy, we had built a simple website and companies were lodging their own jobs, and others were emailing them through to David and I and we were manually submitting them. News was a bit trickier. Much of the arts news reported in mainstream outlets was written in either an ‘artsy’ inaccessible fashion or the real news issues that were going on in the arts, were just not reported at all. In fact, there was such a scarcity of arts news in Australia, that most of our headline scrapes for news on the new site, which was originally called Dramaticonline.com, were from overseas.

So the new website was to have two key planks – jobs and news for the arts.

Our challenge then was to convince the 3000 people on the Jobs Bulletin list that they would actually want to pay for the privilege of joining our new site. I guess the first thing to make clear is that we were quite blunt that we would be turning off the Jobs Bulletin three weeks after the launch of the new site. Also, when we launched dramaticonline.com on 25 October 2000 we gave all 3000 members on the free list one Jobs Bulletin, and 3 News Bulletins a week. This was the taste-tester – if they didn’t like it, they weren’t going to shell out money for a paid subscription.

We also came to the conclusion that at the time those who worked in the arts viewed themselves as much ‘put upon’ and that nobody in the wider world, especially the mainstream media, took the industry seriously. So, we decided to treat our audience like your usual consumer, and that if we wanted them to pay for a subscription, we needed to give them added incentive and a chance for a benefit greater than our offering. Hence we came up with a very, very cool prize schedule – including a grand prize of a trip for 2 to Bali, Amazon vouchers each week and a couple of gorgeous IMacs (the coloured ones) during the life of the campaign. We figured that if housewives could get chances to win great prizes by watching daytime television, then arts workers could win equally great prizes by joining our site.

I must admit, none of this was budgeted for, we just prayed that enough people would convert to pay so that we could pay for the prizes when they were drawn. Talk about flying by the seat of our pants!

As it turned out, about 500 folk converted in the period between launch on 25 October and cut-off deadline, 15 November 2000. Another 500 converted in the next couple of months. And still others streamed through in 2001 though by then we stopped marketing to the free list and went on the hunt for new members out in the real world.

What were the success factors?

1) Our copy was fun. We acknowledged those who worked in the industry and created a ‘clubby’ feel that this site was just for them.

2) The prizes were compelling at that time.

3) The new website (built by David in just six weeks, from scratch) worked unbelievably well and excited everyone who joined, thereby creating word-of-mouth.

4) We had an increasing sense of urgency in our copy as deadlines for grand prizes loomed and the cut-off to the old site was about to happen. Calls to action were translated into sales very efficiently.

5) We emailed our list a couple of times in addition to sending Jobs and News Bulletins to them – explaining why joining was of benefit to them.

6) We had a complete live online transaction capability – unlike many other sites at the time – even though only 50% paid online at the start, the capability still created ‘buzz’ in the industry.

7) We had great news articles and stories, written by industry players and stars. For the first time, arts issues were being reported and written about with seriousness.

We had thrown every last cent we had at it so it had to work, David and I just kept at it until we turned a corner.

9) We were unique, we were different and we had ‘heart’. And it showed in our language and the imagery on the website.

Okay, so that’s our conversion campaign in a nutshell. Sure there are more technical elements, like exactly what time of day to send out a bulk marketing email, how many is too many marketing emails (we did find this out) and the like.

But, the above 9 points really are the nuts and bolts of how we converted 30% of the free list to paid over 12 weeks. I must tell you that this was an incredibly scary experience, there was no Plan B if the campaign failed. But fortunately, it didn’t! It probably helps that we had no-one to look to, as far as we knew at the time, we were the first to attempt such a strategy online, therefore we just made it up as we went along.

Times are different now and I’d probably encourage contemporary bloggers and niche content site owners to build much larger free audiences before they attempt the conversion to pay – and to have multiple levels to their content. General content is free, premium content requires a subscription. If your audience loves you and you provide good value, I reckon they’ll pay for your best stuff.

Look at me – I pay for content I love – Crikey, Marcus Today, Great Au Pair.

If you want to find out more about the conversion campaign, please consider purchasing our book, Niche Content Millionaire – the rest of the secrets are in there.

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Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible

Gene Fowler, an American screenwriter last century famously suggested:

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

I wish I felt a little more ‘miraculous ‘some days when time comes to write.

If you are planning to start a blog, or wondering how to blog, or have already taken the plunge and signed up a Blogger, TypePad or WordPress account, you’ll have experienced the momentary frisson as your ideas swirl around and you try, sometimes in vain, to reach up into the cloud of phrases and start pulling them onto the page in some semblance of order.

Here's me hard at work writing this very post, photo courtesy of our eldest daughter Clea. Excuse the clutter.

It’s not difficult top comprehend why writing blog or website content can seem confronting, particularly if you do not have a background as a wordsmith, or a Masters Degree in writing from college. If you are not used to writing each day (more on the discipline of writing another day), and do not have cause to write on a regular basis, doing so is understandably a challenge.

I suspect this is why PLR (private label rights) articles have become so popular in recent times. PLR articles are essentially blog articles written by others that you can buy to post on your website. They normally come packaged in bundles around themes, and there are a bunch of online services where you can subscribe to receive a steady stream of new articles.

The PLR pitch is easily digested – a regular feed of posts for your blog at a low price. Seems simple. But you need to think through the implications. A PLR package can be purchased and used by a large number of people – we love the PLR package merchants who promise, in exchange of course for a premium fee, to limit the number of people who can buy that package, to say 200. If you are one of the purchasers, that means you have 199 competitors.

Our favourite twist is that even the PLR suppliers acknowledge you’ll need to rewrite their articles so as to have completely unique content on your web site. And hey presto, guess what, there’s software that will scan your article and suggest a bunch of synonyms to substitute into the text so as to create the impression to search engines that your articles are different to everyone else’s. This of course ignores the extremely likely possibility that other web site operators are doing exactly the same thing, using the same software (it’s sold via links from the PLR operators’ web sites).

I actually think that, irrespective of the technology, or even manual re-writing, you’re going to be hard pressed to create a group of words that are actually unique given the sheer volume of words available online today. Ask any SEO specialist and they’ll tell you it isn’t the quantity or uniqueness that matters, what’s most important is incorporating search phrases – groups of words that people are searching for online. That is if you are wanting to ensure your post is found by people.

For a lighter hearted view, try reading 101 Things to do with PLR Articles (Or what to do with recycled content). My personal favourite?

Use them for lyrics to a whacky new song. (It’s funny, but some authors are poets – and they don’t even know it. Look for accidental rhymes and use them to make the latest hit. In a PLR article about Disneyland, we found “Disneylands Discover the Magic Tour…. may be the most popular of the four.” It’s not Nirvana, but it’s a start…)

Our advice is to ditch the PLR, because you can create great blog content yourself. We’ve published literally hundreds of thousands of articles through our internet publishing ventures. The content type has ranged from hard news to reviews, personal profiles, interviews, events and jobs information – you name it, we’ve probably published it.

The key realisation you need to come to is that you are not a writer, you are an EDITOR/writer. By which I mean you have to stop thinking like you are a word slave, and consider yourself more like the editor of your blog. That’s not to say you won’t be writing, you will. But stop thinking you have to write everything.

When we started Arts Hub in 2000 there was a staff of two – myself and Fiona. By the time we sold the business we had an in-house writing team of some five or six, plus 30+ sub-contractors, plus untold unpaid contributors, some regular others sporadic. But for a while there at the beginning we were the writing team, and that meant we needed to be pretty creative when it came to producing our content.

After nearly ten years in the online content business, here’s our top four sources of content that we’ve found to be ultra reliable – and completely achievable for a one-person blogger:

1. Those who want you to publish them

Recruiting guest post writers always ranks high on the list of advice from the sage and wise experts from the better quality blogs. It means tapping into your networks, and inviting people to write articles for your blog. You may be surprised who says yes. Their motivation will be varied, but so many people have something to say. Just make sure you are specific with them about your topic and audience.

2. Those who need you to publish them

One of the surprises for us at Arts Hub was the number of submissions each week from academics who wanted us to publish their articles. Then we remembered that many colleges judge the performance of their academics on the number of articles published each year. As unsolicited contributions their quality varied, but there were some pearls and we happily published the pieces.

3. Those who’d like you to publish them

Our problem at Arts Hub after a few months of operation was not a shortage of content, rather a surplus. Because once it became clear we were becoming the journal of record for our industry we wound up on every single publicists’ fax machine speed dial. Not a day went by without dozens of press releases arriving. If you are focussing your blog on a particular industry, or niche, try thinking like a media outlet, and ask relevant industry associations and other organizations to add your to their press release distribution list. If the press release is well written, and consistent with your blog’s theme and style, you have the basis of post right there in your hand.

4. YOU

OK, I’m not copping out – because the point has to be made. It doesn’t matter how much content your source for your blog from third parties, the best content comes from you. And that means you must knuckle down, tackle the blank page monster, and write. Guess what? Writing well is the same as becoming proficient in most common activities. You need to learn the rules and techniques, and practice. The more you write, the more you research good writing methods, the better a writer you will be.

There’s an enormous amount of content online. Some is fantastic. Some is awful. Most is somewhere in between. If you devote some time and energy to developing your writing talents – and, let’s be blunt, you have at least a modicum of latent ability – you can lift your blog’s content into the fantastic category.

So please, although daunting a prospect as it might seem, give the PLR merchants the flick, and start put keyboard to screen today.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites. Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now