My Wealth Creation Journey

Day 643 - Sunday 31st January 2010

8am up and about this morning, not because I want to watch Andy Murray in the final of the Australian Tennis Open... although it would be kinda good if he managed to bring home a grand slam title after the 74 year drought!

A bit of Facebook, Twitter and the like to get things moving today... a quick catch up on Skype and then shutting fown the Deliver Net system so that I can download a couple of databases to start the work for them. End of month as well so I'm backing up their data so that just in case we have an end of month position. One hour later the data is down and to my horror I can't update one of the databases... essentially what this means is that whilst I was copying it a process must have had it locked.... Mmm now I have checked all the users, none were logged in so... ahh we have just gone live with a semi automated POD (Proof of Delivery) add on to our i-Tr@der Business Platform with a company called TruckCom who must be updating and making data requests over the weekend... even though there is no need for that. Another hour or so and all is well...

Whilst the Sales database is downloading I can manipulate and attend to many of the other bits and pieces that need changing which takes a good few hours anyway. A trip to the shops to get a few items and then back to the ranch to finish off the Deliver Net work.

A call from Otis at 4:30... he is now ready to do the things he had left over from Friday for Deliver Net and they need for the morning. I am in the middle of uploading Databases and will be for another hour... he'll be out then... so what is going to happen? ... well I suppose I'll have to deal with it then... and also am training his new customer tomorrow because he is out on holiday after a night on the lash tonight... interesting to ponder how I would have handled this at 20 years of age... interesting question!

I'm a bit behind with the Table Tennis posts and I won't have time tonight either, but manage to get one uploaded from last Thursday. I have some interesting posts that I want to get up onto the site which might promote a bit of controversy and excited banter... we shall wait and see !!

Everything is sorted around 6:30 then a shave and a bit of a tidy up... with friends tonight... nothing too wild and wacky a few sociable drinks maybe a light bit to eat and then a not too late night ready for a fresh start o the new week... Monday looks like it is going to be very busy... and Otis is away on holiday tomorrow so likely to be a busy busy day!

Day 642 - Saturday 30th January 2010

A good lie in this morning, a busy week and a Table Tennis match last night renders me pretty lazy this morning. I finally emerge from the bed about 10am... then onto the PC to say welcome to the world!

This weekend is pretty well organised, yesterday I put together a long list of tasks that needed to be undertaken on the Deliver Net system so that pretty much takes care of tomorrow. There is a vague chance of a few drinks with friends tonight, however between now and then it's book writing time.

The Internet Marketing section has indeed turned into a huge area, rather taken over the book I feel, but the importance of engagement with the Internet in the modern era is so crucial that I guess this was inevitable. There are 3 levels of Internet involvement today, Information reception (world wide web), Publishing and participation in providing information (Live Web and Internet Marketing is within this section) and then using the connectivity of the internet to Communicate and Collaborate (Skype, Email, IP Telephony and Cloud computing, Software as a Service 'SaaS' products and services such as our SME Business Platform i-Trader.

When we stand back and look at the subjects covered above almost everything that we do has some link back into this huge information resource and combined with online retail almost everyone needs to understand what is happening. This is even more important for business owners who have both so much to gain and so much to lose as well... ignorance can be very expensive... get enlightened In 2 The Clouds get the book!!

The writing goes quite well today and is interdispersed with some really deep thought provoking online chat as well... sometimes we only find our true selves when we are at low points in our lives... the clarity of what must be done and the re-connection with the important things in our lives builds character, re-aligns the ship and re-energises us to focus on where we are headed... let us not forget the journey however... without enjoying this we will have the to be avoided at all costs 'near life experience'.

Page 181 out of the way and now a trip to the shops... got to get a few bits and pieces then will settle down for a bit of TV and relax for the evening... The day after tomorrow is on tonight... quite an epic in terms of scenery and a cautionary tale to boot...

Day 641 - Friday 29th January 2010

6am start this morning. I am going to my 1st 4Networking meeting this morning, which is the inaugural Hemel Hempstead meeting. Otis my lad is the Group Leader (which means he effectively runs the meeting) so I am going along to support him and also to experience for myself what these meetings are actually like.

I get a message from Eddie Dillon who ... was ... going with me, but his some is now //aborting university and so Eddie has got to go and pick him up... don't worry Eddie we'll get you at the next one! I've printed out a single page of the Book front to take with me which I can mention in my 40 second pitch that everyone gets a chance to do, which will be different hopefully.

Otis also texts me... bring some cards and his £10 for the breakfast... so I stop off on the way to the M1 to pick the cash up. The motorway attempts to delay me with an accident at J8 but fortunately it has all but cleared up by the time I get there just a few rubberneckers intent on slowing things down.

Roger my Table Tennis team member has turned up he runs a stationary business Phoenix Office and he said he might come so it was good that he did for my lads sake more than anything else. The format of the meeting is quite good and Otis does a pretty good job running / controlling it I must say. There are a few interesting people there as well, possibly 3 leads for me, but also someone that I know could work with my sister as well... as we build the customer base for i-Trader moving through the coming year.

I decide to join the group for a couple of reasons... (1) they have a special introductory £100 for 6 months if you join on that day at a first meeting of a new group, so that is a good deal. (2) That they have an opportunity at these meetings for someone to do a 10 minute 4sight, which is not a sales pitch more of an opportunity to pass on some expertise and knowledge to those in the audience. Bearing in mind these meetings are going on all over the country... I could plug myself in a new group every week (or even 2) and deliver Cloud Computing information as the expert behind the 'In 2 The Clouds' book. Now 25-30 bums on seats every week in a closed environment with an opportunity to do a 10 minute pitch sounds like an interesting opportunity to me!

There is also at these meetings to have 3 - 10 minute 1-on-1 sessions with people in the room. These are quite interesting and a chance to establish better connections... One of the people I met up with could well be a good find to work with my sister... so I will definately forward those details onto her and keep in touch myself. I stay on after for an additional 20 minutes or so and chat with a guy who I have met before and we talk about the possibilities of working together now the book is just about out!!

Back at the ranch at 10:45 and then catching up with a few things... the VAT is due this week as is my Self Assessment for Tax purposes. Otis is much later getting back than me and rolls up with Morris who has come over to talk about a new community project that we are involved in. The first meeting will take place next week and Morris wants to thrash out the Agenda and make sure the stage is set properly for this meeting with the 6th formers. We are going to have to lead the project as these young adults won't have any experience of running such projects so it will be interesting ... and for Otis too!

The afternoon is filled with preparation for the upgrade and changes to Deliver Net over the weekend and also for the initialisation of the system for Asobi one of our new customers. He wants to be up and running for invoicing as of Monday which is the start of his new financial year. So there is a fair amount of work to do here as well as the training which we will have to now do on Monday as we are running short on time.

Tonight a Table Tennis match... not keen on playing matches and this team is close to the bottom of our league... When we arrive we see that they have 2 'funny bat' players (this is people who have pimples on their backhand side, completely different to their forehand), and this makes them quite awkward to play. Some players have found increased success changing to this technology whilst regular table tennis players with normal rubbers think it is a kind of cheating... I find it an intellectual challenge personally.

We win the match 9-1 although the result doesn't tell the tale.. 4 of the games went to 5 legs and another to 4, so it was closer than it looks. Back at the ranch after dropping Roger off and picking up a Kebab, later than normal after 11pm already... a bit of TV, checking the Internet and then off to bed a little after midnight!

Day 640 - Thursday 28th January 2010

6:30am start today as I have to sort some data out for Yellow Pig. They now have people working over in the Phillipines and consequently there are logins at strange times of the day. Manage to get the system halted so no one can update then sort out their stock records and upload all the images that they will be using from their new catalogue.

Blog post sorted out for yesterday, which seemed to take hours as other things keep cropping up that need attending to. These are predominantly to do with getting our marketing machine going. We are near the end of the month and there is a lot still to do to get the book launched (including finishing the book).

Set and email to Morris and also to Ian my colleague for them to read the book so far in order to collect a few reviews which I can also add to the book and use in marketing materials.

Otis is working on the Sales page for the book today and this is good experience and a steep learning curve as we do not have a sales page generator and he is having to cut and paste ideas from other sales pages in order to create what we want. There is still plenty to do on this as well because we haven't set up the Total Business Cart side of it yet either. We will have a couple of flavours of the Sales Page so that we can test what works best, however it is great to at last get on and do some proper marketing.

Livia has a post up on Ezine Article, however I get an email back saying that we need to amend the content as we have broken some of the rules, bound to happen on our first post... we will have to sort tomorrow now and then resubmit.

Chasing up Deliver Net today they have agreed to go with the weekend of the 13/14th for the New Server deployment which is great news so I now need to get that machine organsised. We also receive confirmation from Morris that a community project we are involved in is now going to happen, so that will also increase opportunity and revenue as well.

I'm wrapping up promptly tonight as I have a squash game over in the Watford Leisure centre Squash Ladder. Arrive on time to find out the guy I'm playing has had a match before mine and he also gives me a good hiding although 9-4, 9-7, 9-7 was a competitive game. In the end my fitness and lack of practice didn't assist but really enjoyed the game anyway.

Back at the ranch... serious catch up with Table Tennis Blog and then some online chat sharing some good ideas about Internet Marketing... mmm how sad is that at 10:30pm... Urfi drops by as well on the way home... he is starting his Sunday Table Tennis sessions on Sunday at Barnet and he has potentially two new schools to start Table Tennis coming on soon, great news!! Bed just after 12 midnight after Questions Time and This week with Andrew McNeal... Off to Otis's inaugural Hemel Hempstead 4Networking meeting tomorrow morning and an early start therefore!

Day 639 - Wednesday 27th January 2010

6:45am today, big writing day ahead of me. We need to get organised with the Sales Page for the book which I was working on last night. Otis has a fair amount of support work to attend to with Deliver Net, Asibo and also Yellow Pig, as well as sorting out my Sales Page once it is written.

Livia is working on my articles along with my Bio so that we can get them posted up onto e-zine article and / or other article submitting sites.

I get a call from Andras who wants to pop over later on today and update me on progress with the supply of Health Care workers in the North of England. His boss is over from Hungary with him and yesterday they were up to see this client whom I introduced them to and by all accounts it went very well ! We arrange to hook up at 5:30pm this afternoon at the office.

Livia is a little late in this morning and problems with the car she is walking everywhere... with an extended walk today she doesn't have her laptop with her, so she will be working at my desk... well this gives me an excuse to go next door and concenrate on my Sales page and also working on the book.

By lunchtime the Sales Page is pretty much done, so I hand this over to Otis and Livia to work their magic. I give them some examples Sales Pages to work with which they can use for ideas. I know what I am looking for and I'm sure we can get close by the end of the day.

We're deciding what to do with Article Marketing as well today. I have given Livia a page which cropped up on Google... which is from our Website I will definately have to investigate how it got where it did... but anyway it will serve as our first article, and now I have the short Bio written we can be off and running. Now we just need to sort out how we will distribute the articles... a quick revisit of our Big Help List for Internet Marketing tools comes in handy again as we have some links there we can go too!

Next onto the book... there are some support issues piling up in the background and Deliver Net have been on the phone fairly incessantly today... they are changing a lot of prices at the weekend and also 3 new customers are going live with online ordering... so it is keeping us very busy.

The afternoon sails by... writing the book the hours pass like minutes and also I have been called in and out to help with various things on the marketing. Great though that we are slowly but surely edging towards being able to undertake some proper Internet Marketing for ourselves... after almost 2 years of working on the platform, writing the book and developing software!

5:30pm my Hungarian guys arrive... things went better than exected up North and looks like the first project to supply two people is almost within site. They have some great plans for this sector and things are really looking up. The numbers appear right, just a few i's to dot and t's to cross and the deal will be done. It looks like they also might get assistance from within the Industry to promote themselves to others which is great news!!

Tonight is Table Tennis, we are playing in the Handicap cup against a mid tabled second division side. We are are the top of the Premier division... We come out vistors 264 points to 99 and with a 144 point handicap then are 243... so we win by 19 points... on to round two !!

Back at base Urfi pops in and we have a quick chat about the development of the table tennis in our rising number of locations and also the next resources and when they will arrive... Urfi has balooned to 95 kg... 10 more than me (at least) and asked how the hell do I keep the weight off? He doesn't eat very much or drink a lot ... so he claims... Urfi is off...

Some social chitchat and catch up with my JV Training partner... things are going well over there... and a chat about training for our clients and how we should go about it and get the model correct so that we can seamlessly transfer to the new training modules when the time is right.

Sleep beckons at around 12:30pm... going to be tired in the morning but stack to do again !!

Day 638 - Tuesday 26th January 2010

Up this morning at 6:30am, loads to be getting on with today. 3 Blog posts to finish off to compliment those rattled off last night, then set up Julie from Better Business Systems on as a supplier so that we can get the invoice on for her.

Some emails to sort out, a booking to get my haircut done (looking a bit wild and wacky at the moment) as we need to get the Video for the e-book 'in 2 The Clouds' sorted. Although I think we will use the Video for getting people to the Sales Page rather than on the sales page directly.

My colleague Ian is back at work today, yesterday he was away sorting out a bereavement in the family, seems to be a lot of this about at the moment. Today is reconciliation of the Accounts for Deliver Net, a service we perform monthly just to ensure system integrity, with over 4,000 invoices a month this is well worth while.

I'm chatting with my colleague about the investigation and deployment of a new HTML Editor control box for our application. It is now getting to the point that we need to utilise a box which we can easily deploy and is versatile for all the situations in which we might need to use it. A well supported and developing component is what we need... there is one that I already like the look of...

11:30am.. off to get the hair sorted... grade 4 short razor job... must be my spring haircut cut... but it is still only 2c outside! Back at the ranch circa 12:30pm now got to get a couple of accounts sorted out and then send out statements. Now a bit of lunch and then I have to sort out the General Ledgers for the new systems at Hysen. These are now implemented and having upgraded the G/L software they can now manage the General Ledger accounts themselves.

Right I now have to get onto the Sales Page... we have redirected the domain in 2 the clouds to point to our temporary holding page which forwards onto the i-Tr@der Website which has the link on the left hand side to sign up for the e-book for free... Then Otis is preparing the Sales page for us, which I will write the main content for.

Interruptions abound at the end of the day... Hysen needing some support, Yellow Pig on the phone for an hour, then a long conversation with Ruth from Deliver Net... one of their Warehouse workers has passed away and his funeral is Friday afternoon... they want to extend the month end to include Saturday as they will be invoicing then as well... Nigel Lord was only 39 years old...  and from prognosis to passing away just 8 days... this is quite unbelievable.

Into the night working on Sales Page headings... I was supposed to be at a Cashflow evening up in Northampton with Eileen, Suzanne, and 5 others today... but I have to move things along with the book and the marketing so unfortunately had to bow out.

A chance to catch up with how the game which was very well... before the laptop overheated and switched off... going to have to send it back to the menders again I think. In bed a little after midnight and the promise of an early start tomorrow with so many projects on the go!! 

Day 637 - Monday 25th January 2010

7:30am this morning and cracking on making a long list of activities that need to be actioned today. There is so much writing to do and things going on that I can't see the wood for the trees... we all have days like this and the best way to deal with it as a friend reminded me is to do the old categorisation... Urgent and Important, Urgent but not important, Not important but Urgent and Not urgent but important. Of course the best place for all the tasks is Not urgent but important... but there appears too many Urgent and Important items in my lists... time to delegate... but there is still a limit to what others can do... skills transfer not completed yet.

Read a sad email from my colleague this morning his wife's mother passed away on Saturday, which although not a total surprise was not expected. He will be out for the whole day attending to those things that have to be attended to on such occassions.

Right... Pay a Supplier, sort Livia and Otis out looking at what Social Oomph is all about. Urfi pops in he has sorted out a new video for the front page of Urban Progress TTPro blog site. He has done quite well with his limited knowledge of Video and music editing... but it is a good start!

Written a short Bio for Articles that we are submitting this week and create a new page to send people back to if they click on the links... this is a tricky one because where do I want these people to end up... finally I think that I will have to build interest in me and also provided them with links to all the other things that we do... Possibly the articles will need different destinations depending on the content...

Sort out a couple of quick issues for Yellow Pig, a quick conversation to fix a date with Deliver Net for a computer systems review, they have had their accountants review their systems and produce a report which we must discuss the content of, meeting is tentatively set for the 10th February.

Now onto completing the installation of the upgrades for the General Ledger. This is needed for the work I must get onto with Hysen and their 3 new sites.

Livia has been without her car since coming back from Slovakia and finally Urfi gets the guy that sorts his car out to come over and take a look... he gets it going but there is a problem with power to the glow plugs... so he will have to take it away... fortunately he has a similar car and so has been able to make a quick diagnosis. Livia and him have to go back to his place (he can't drive two cars) and then he brings her back later on... hopefully this can be put to bed tomorrow... as the walk to work is killing her back !

I've added two more bits to the Book now... one on Status Net which is a Micro Blogging platform which may well be a bit of revolutionary technology that explodes what twitter has started and the second is Social Oomph which is designed to captialise on this evolving marketplace.

A Match report blog post added to the Watford Table tennis blog then off to pick up Roger and to finally do some coaching for Norman. I've been coaching Norman for years but because of Xmas and the weather we haven't played for almost 2 months... anyway that goes ok... the practice with Roger is a hard hour, but rally good... playing in poor conditions means that when you finally get to play in good ones that it makes a huge difference!

Back at base... a bit later than I wanted... but time to get started on catching up with the Blog posts... the rest I can complete first thing tomorrow morning... finish the day with some online chatting... seems like I'm not the only one that has had a really busy day... more to come tomorrow though... and Inland revenue to sort out this week and a VAT return... the jobs keep pouring in !!

 

Day 636 - Sunday 24th January 2010

A bit earlier today on the PC but still after 10am... I'm onto the copywriting section of my e-book 'in 2 the clouds' today which is definately a topic that I need to do a little research into. I was at a 3 day event in the summer of 2008 and heard Alan Forrest Smith speak which was a good introduction into the importance of copywriting and so I will look there first for some inspiration.

Actually CopyBlogger is also a great site found via google... they really do have some fantastic tips and tricks for writing Copy. The problem I always finding little goldmines like this is that once I'm on these sites I do spend an hour or two there... this is highly relevant to our development of Sales pages that I am going to have to write during the coming week... Headlines are so crucial in retaining the readers attention and getting them to read on to the next line and so on and so on until the buy button... with such a powerful call to action that they just have to buy!

I try a bit of Fun on the Watford Table Tennis site with a Watford Table Tennis Blog helps with economic recovery to test out the theory. This is the kind of heading that might entice some people who might not normally read the blog to do so, let's see what happens.

On with my copywriting section and the pages are flowing freely, i've had to go back into the book into previous sections to add bits as I have been writing... daily new information comes to light which is really useful and to make sure the book is as up to date as possible it is worth including these little gems and snippets. There will come a moment though were I will have to call time on new insertions as the Internet marketing section is a very large component of the book now!

Morris has called a couple of times to review the meeting we had on Friday, I haven't had the chance as yet to call him back and will leave this till Monday now, it can wait until during the week. Off to Asda's now to get some food... the cupboard is bare!

Well not a bad book writing weekend up to over 170 pages now... bath... then food then book writing again ( auto responders ) and then bed... a very busy week coming up!

Day 635 - Saturday 23rd January 2010

Well it is the weekend, and a rather busy week once again sees me enjoying a restful lay-in. By the time I'm at the PC most of the morning has disappeared. I'm chastising myself for being lazy... one of the problems of working for yourself I'm sure others will recognise is this constant battle between work and leisure... it has been a battle I've fought with for years... and am still in it!

Onto book writing... at least another couple of days to see if I can push ahead as far as possible. I'm still in the Internet marketing section which is turning into a bit of a monster! One of my reviewers has tried to download the e-book from the link that I sent out, but I have renamed the book so it isn't working... 5 minutes and all is well... Morris also passed comment on the week that he thought the book titled 'in 2 the clouds' was very comprehensive and he was now going back to read through it in more detail. Other comments have also been positive too!! Of course I am pleased to hear such feedback... although some extra diagrams or pictures wouldn't go a miss.... 1or 2 people have said.

The problem with writing a book such as this one is that although the majority of what I am including is actually no researched but based on experience sometimes I need to access web sites and check examples to add weight to the content... then there are some real distractions. Today I have finally visited Social Oomph (which I heard about over a week ago) and it looks pretty interesting. Some online chit chat has also confirmed that it might be a useful tool indeed. I send Otis an email and ask him to check it out on Monday... if it is as good as it sounds then it could save us some time and therefore pay for itself quite quickly.

A couple of support emails float in from clients during today... some of our customers use the weekends to clean up and housekeep and so often we receive requests during the week. I pause from Book writing also to sort out a problem with Westiminster University who want need some database set up completed.

Ian my colleague has started work on the Schedule program which is a kind of collaborative task management program however his wife's mother fll down the stairs, had an operation to sort it and was suspected of having a heart attack all at the end of last week... Ian has therefore been on family duties and understandably focussed in other areas... lets hope everything works out ok and settles down soon.

No need to cook tonight as I have some food left over from during the week. So a bit of a relax from about 9pm onwards... beer... glass of wine and perhaps a little TV if there is anything worth watching...

Day 634 - Friday 22nd January 2010

6am start... as predicted a bit numb this morning... Onto the powerpoint presentation finish off the last of the slides, this happens by 7:00ish... then finding directions to the place where we are going... I have never been to the place, although it is not difficult just want to make sure the map is imprinted in my brain. I'm pretty good with maps, I can look at one and then follow the picture of the map in my brain normally, unless it is a pretty tricky destination.

Suzanne one of my JV partners who will be working with us on the Training modules is with me early... Otis arrives 7:45am... and whilst I finish of the preparations for todays show we drinking some coffee and the others are having some toast! I'm not hungry... so take an Apple to eat when I do later on...

En-Route we stop via my mothers house... my sister is also attending todays meeting as part of the Outsourcing function to take on Bookkeeping as clients come on board. A full car of four and off to Reading we go! The journey is uneventful and we arrive just a little after 10:00am... parking next to a mound of snow... unbelievable that there is still snow hanging around, the last of it disappeared a week or so ago in watford.

Morris arrives, the set up goes without a hiccup and a 'streaming nosed' Julie arrives soon after... all the introductions out of the way and into the presentation. The purpose of this meeting is to kick off the SM7 Project. SME7 is basically all the activity and work required to roll out the 7 Step process to getting the business that you really want, More Profit, More time and More choices... as written and described in my soon to be released e-book... in 2 the clouds. (Due out at the end of this month... still a bit to write though)

The meeting is designed to be interactive... as it is the first outing for the idea it is more about ensuring that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet and everyone is comfortable with the concept. Each of the people in the room will be performing an important part in the deliverable and as such it was important that everyone met each other... ok there are still gaps in the structure but I am sure these will be quickly filled as word gets out of the exciting project we are now undertaking!

Surprisingly the meeting is lively and everyone chips in with comments which was great and so we're not wrapped up until close to 12:45pm... back to the ranch by about 2pm...

Urfi is then around... today he is commissioning my sister to run his books for him... this is the 4th i-Tr@der customer my sister has taken on in the last 3 months... that is pretty good going and she is now considering taking on another person to assist with the workload as they are getting maxed out.

Livia is away... her car is still broken and she is unable to get around... town hall visit, some duties at the bank as well, so she leaves early to attend to them. Well the day has been pretty busy... and I am in need of a quick power nap to recharge the batteries... Table Tennis practice with Roger for an hour or two this evening at the Watford Boys Grammar School Urban Progress TTPro Club. Then pick up some chips and a few beers... settle down and relax... got interested in a movie which means I stay up far too late... Mmmm!