In the beginning, I was so determined to re-establish myself successfully in NLP full time, I worked a final feature film and invested all that profit, plus a lot more, in travelling to Australia twice to go through Prac to TT in NLP, TLT and Hypnosis. I had worked out the maths with my business advisor and we agreed I could make it work but this was a high risk strategy. I went deeper into the red than I’ve ever known, and I was considerably outside my comfort zone. Between the last day of my last film and earning the first money from NLP there was a period of seven months where I earned nothing but spent everything! I’m not suggesting this is the best way to do this. Outside the film industry I had no way of earning income
Motivated by the desire, and financial reality, I spent every waking hour invested in website building and optimizing, networking, working through the marketing DVDs from TJC, reading books on advertising, some particularly useful ones were:
Ogilvy on Advertising
Content Rules – Ann Handley and C.G, Chapman
How to Get to the Top in Google
Advanced Google Adwords – Brad Geddes
Search Engine Optimisation – Jennifer Grappone & Gradiva Couzin
Logo Design Love – David Airey
(also rang Google and spoke about algorythms for website optimization)
I invested most of my advertising budget in joining BNI. It was a high risk strategy but it paid off. It’s probably not for all, but Business Networking International (BNI) turned out to be a hit for me. I got my year’s subscription back in about a month and after 2 months I was about £1000 up in the investment. That’s because I followed the protocols and invested time – which I had – in the process. I got to network with people who are the movers and shakers, people who know that investment of money brings returns, and who were the ideal market for me, not just in and of themselves, but also the contacts that they had too, which I gained access to through my investment. I’m sufficiently satisfied that I agreed to take the Presidency role, which I assume in March. I went in this direction because I had limited available finance. It has given me so much more than other networking.
I also spent the required time to fully prepare the Practitioner 4-in-1 course, and my fourth one starts in a few days time. I already have four people who are about to commit their deposits for the June Prac, so all is going well. My financial intention this year is to make at least as much money as I was in the film industry, and then to double that figure next year as I move into a bigger house. There is a precise figure. As of two weeks back I have cleared all the money I laid out, in one year I have become debt free, and I’m very happy about that achievement.
I decided to commit two years of focused effort to this new business, so I cut out a lot of other activities which although enjoyable did not move me towards my business goals. This efficiency with time allowed me to achieve more. For example I kept my martial art practice but backed off from most music making and holidays.
One difference was the regularity, quantity and quality of my sleep, which gave me more energy. I was already vegan, but again I cut out some of the less healthy foods, and I feel better for that. In-line water filter means I get better water to eat, to wash and cook food with, and again I feel better for that. I take regular high quality supplements of various sorts – that would be a long list. These are some of the less obvious ways of increasing vitality, efficiency and productivity.
I am starting to compartmentalize the different tasks – website, marketing, networking, writing materials, learning more about the field, creating lists of potential students/businesses, and calling these lists, physical training and so on. I track all that activity in a database, so I know what I have done, when, and any info or actions to take. This helps me enormously and I am continuing to develop that over the next month or so.