Starting Again
Discussion
AB said:
DSLiverpool said:
Oh and good old PH of course, its nice to work with PH`ers as it has a certain sense of community and honesty (!).
Agreed! I've not seen this thread before today Dave, but our conversation this morning made me go looking!It's been great working with Dave over the last few months, I think we've surprised each other (or at least Dave's e-commerce expertise have surprised me!) with what is possible with an excellent knowledge of the likes of Amazon etc even with an expensive product that to an outsider doesn't seem to have a huge market.
With Dave's help, we sold 2 new (high value/margin) products through Amazon within 2 days of him helping us get it listed and 'optimising' it and this is a product that by selling a couple a month gives you a very comfortable income.
Separate to this, the team of very skilled, passionate and hungry people he has built up are working on the launch of our e-commerce site and it's extremely exciting.
DSLiverpool said:
Hoofy said:
What I meant was that if you only had a small number of items to sell so had the time to do this then your items would be fairly expensive? Or do you end up shifting a lot?
If you want a chat PM me and I will happily explain what you can do to make a difference. Amazon have decluttered the UI on the campaign manager recently and handily offer you automated keywords - dont use automated keywords set it up manually if used.Well its been a while but here goes ....
Real staff - 7 with two more to be recruited, a designer and an email marketing specialist.
Clients - 31 projects live from full site with marketing to just https migration, 16 on retainer, 13 in the sales funnel to pull down.
Ecommerce - none but WOW! Sweets will be live this month and the jewellery this year (hopefully)
Revenue share income - Bugger all so far but its no secret we are working with Gio Goi and they are sponsoring MMA in Sheffield to "harden the brand" along with Netflix commissioning a series on the brothers (read the book "still breathing" its a great tale). With hindsight we got a bit carried away and have put far more effort in here than expected and its a very slow burn. It looks like it will pay off, we have three revenue share projects going live in the next 8 weeks but have sliced expectation.
My wages - £1400 in total yes fourteen hundred but we have paid back 25% of my investment and I see the light ...... £2k ish from October I hope.
Location - Birkenhead and Liverpool but we may have to move back to Liverpool for our next move I am thinking Princess Dock to avoid driving down the strand each day. We are using a consultant to guide us, he is an ex agency guy who built up the biggest one in Liverpool and scarily he said if we want to get serious we need to move to Manchester for the talent, thats hard to take and I struggle to believe it (until we tried to hire a designer).
Memorable things:
Petes millions of little workers who write content, do technical seo, generally do micro aspects of marketing as real specialists in their field amaze me
Everyone has to have a bloody Mac laptop at £1500 for an average one (were leasing them but if Velstar goes under I am committed!)
Our May forecast for the end of year retainer target of £10k was smashed in August - new target is three times as much.
Why do people think an invoice due date is the time to think about paying ..... this kills me as cashflow is my main concern
Other agencies are nice people and refer clients for ecommerce and we refer back for portfolio sites etc.
Read the Morph Suits story its quite inspiring and shows you that "idea" can come from anywhere.
Thats it for now just left to say the most obscure enquiry came in today Landmine detecting rats - a great charity and one we are going to support, they want to sell Ratty stuff to fund more sniffer rats maybe PH could support it once live it seems like a worthy cause.
Real staff - 7 with two more to be recruited, a designer and an email marketing specialist.
Clients - 31 projects live from full site with marketing to just https migration, 16 on retainer, 13 in the sales funnel to pull down.
Ecommerce - none but WOW! Sweets will be live this month and the jewellery this year (hopefully)
Revenue share income - Bugger all so far but its no secret we are working with Gio Goi and they are sponsoring MMA in Sheffield to "harden the brand" along with Netflix commissioning a series on the brothers (read the book "still breathing" its a great tale). With hindsight we got a bit carried away and have put far more effort in here than expected and its a very slow burn. It looks like it will pay off, we have three revenue share projects going live in the next 8 weeks but have sliced expectation.
My wages - £1400 in total yes fourteen hundred but we have paid back 25% of my investment and I see the light ...... £2k ish from October I hope.
Location - Birkenhead and Liverpool but we may have to move back to Liverpool for our next move I am thinking Princess Dock to avoid driving down the strand each day. We are using a consultant to guide us, he is an ex agency guy who built up the biggest one in Liverpool and scarily he said if we want to get serious we need to move to Manchester for the talent, thats hard to take and I struggle to believe it (until we tried to hire a designer).
Memorable things:
Petes millions of little workers who write content, do technical seo, generally do micro aspects of marketing as real specialists in their field amaze me
Everyone has to have a bloody Mac laptop at £1500 for an average one (were leasing them but if Velstar goes under I am committed!)
Our May forecast for the end of year retainer target of £10k was smashed in August - new target is three times as much.
Why do people think an invoice due date is the time to think about paying ..... this kills me as cashflow is my main concern
Other agencies are nice people and refer clients for ecommerce and we refer back for portfolio sites etc.
Read the Morph Suits story its quite inspiring and shows you that "idea" can come from anywhere.
Thats it for now just left to say the most obscure enquiry came in today Landmine detecting rats - a great charity and one we are going to support, they want to sell Ratty stuff to fund more sniffer rats maybe PH could support it once live it seems like a worthy cause.
Edited by DSLiverpool on Saturday 9th September 01:32
Were moving again, Latitude building Pier Head Liverpool chosen for its vibe, coolness, price and location (2 mins from ferry, station and tunnel exit) so this is a serviced office with hot desks and great views of the river, its called Avenue HQ Mann Island and we think we can get freelancers from the hotdesks and more devs by being located in Liverpool.
Personally its not great for me but it is for everyone else.
Expansion is now fully restricted by developers and marketers - we need staff that can multitask to a degree as we cannot afford one person in each specific role (also we will still use freelancers).
Our own site is just live (still needs work) and we will be marketing ourselves from May when we should be in a position to take work on.
Ramping up the workforce introduced me to PAYE which when you add VAT and corp tax makes you think your single handedly supporting the government. January was £14k out on VAT and PAYE which really screwed the cashflow.
Question - does every agency fall out with clients on occasion? this is new to me but some of them just ask and ask and ask or throw in a "I am paying you thousands and I want to see results immediately" doing 80% ecommerce we are far more answerable than a generic dev agency.
Personally its not great for me but it is for everyone else.
Expansion is now fully restricted by developers and marketers - we need staff that can multitask to a degree as we cannot afford one person in each specific role (also we will still use freelancers).
Our own site is just live (still needs work) and we will be marketing ourselves from May when we should be in a position to take work on.
Ramping up the workforce introduced me to PAYE which when you add VAT and corp tax makes you think your single handedly supporting the government. January was £14k out on VAT and PAYE which really screwed the cashflow.
Question - does every agency fall out with clients on occasion? this is new to me but some of them just ask and ask and ask or throw in a "I am paying you thousands and I want to see results immediately" doing 80% ecommerce we are far more answerable than a generic dev agency.
There are definitely clients that don't know/value the work that goes into making a successful website. They just throw a few vague requirements at you, they always haggle on the price and then expect it all done yesterday. There's definitely an art to spotting these clients and learning to apply a premium to their quotes to account for the extra time it takes to deal with them and meet their perfectionist standards (even though they aren't paying much). These are the clients where you have to manage expectations very carefully from the start.
Great to hear you're moving on up in the office world again. That's a fantastic location sure to impress both prospective employees and clients!
Great to hear you're moving on up in the office world again. That's a fantastic location sure to impress both prospective employees and clients!
Edited by jammy-git on Tuesday 6th February 21:24
Thanks James, its a learning curve and we have just signed up to Adobe Sign to send agreed specs and service level agreements out with.
The big project I discussed with you didnt come off they actually stopped the company trading it was eating so much online cash (the original site was a CRO disaster and cost over £50k)
The big project I discussed with you didnt come off they actually stopped the company trading it was eating so much online cash (the original site was a CRO disaster and cost over £50k)
DSLiverpool said:
Ramping up the workforce introduced me to PAYE which when you add VAT and corp tax makes you think your single handedly supporting the government. January was £14k out on VAT and PAYE which really screwed the cashflow.
Employers NI is the one that always does my head in. A business gets 'taxed' for employing people who then work and generate tax! Utter madness.Frimley111R said:
DSLiverpool said:
Ramping up the workforce introduced me to PAYE which when you add VAT and corp tax makes you think your single handedly supporting the government. January was £14k out on VAT and PAYE which really screwed the cashflow.
Employers NI is the one that always does my head in. A business gets 'taxed' for employing people who then work and generate tax! Utter madness.DSLiverpool said:
Just wondering is this one you can stretch (like corp tax) or is it like VAT (pay on the nail or life gets hard) - anyone stretched this and for how long / consequence?
Interest and penalties as per HMRC's guidance here:https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-happens-if-you-do...
If your PAYE payments are considerable (we have clients with £10k - £15k per month), HMRC's debt management department will be on the phone to you sharpish if you are late paying. They are also partial to sending large gentlemen to knock on your door if the debt is high/old enough.
LeighW said:
Interest and penalties as per HMRC's guidance here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-happens-if-you-do...
If your PAYE payments are considerable (we have clients with £10k - £15k per month), HMRC's debt management department will be on the phone to you sharpish if you are late paying. They are also partial to sending large gentlemen to knock on your door if the debt is high/old enough.
Ours is £1500 a month ish and oldest is Novemember but I will pay nov and dec end of this month so how bad is that? https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-happens-if-you-do...
If your PAYE payments are considerable (we have clients with £10k - £15k per month), HMRC's debt management department will be on the phone to you sharpish if you are late paying. They are also partial to sending large gentlemen to knock on your door if the debt is high/old enough.
DSLiverpool said:
LeighW said:
Interest and penalties as per HMRC's guidance here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-happens-if-you-do...
If your PAYE payments are considerable (we have clients with £10k - £15k per month), HMRC's debt management department will be on the phone to you sharpish if you are late paying. They are also partial to sending large gentlemen to knock on your door if the debt is high/old enough.
Ours is £1500 a month ish and oldest is Novemember but I will pay nov and dec end of this month so how bad is that? https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-happens-if-you-do...
If your PAYE payments are considerable (we have clients with £10k - £15k per month), HMRC's debt management department will be on the phone to you sharpish if you are late paying. They are also partial to sending large gentlemen to knock on your door if the debt is high/old enough.
A quick update in one game changing thing -
We have moved 4 times, from a windowless self store, to a boutique small office, to a bland bigger one and ONLY NOW can I see how your work environment can really help you grow.
We are now in a very trendy complex right on the river in Liverpool, on one side is another agency going much longer than us and on the other side the studios of The Anfield Wrap. The place is buzzing with networking and events and the boardroom is the stuff of dreams, of 8 prospective clients we have had in 7 have signed up and that last one isnt dead yet!! We would never have had the client enthusiasm in our last office. Also going out for lunch with a client is so varied and can be a clincher, current favourite is Matou on top of the ferry building, no more getting a sarnie in.
We have a 6 man officer and 4 hot desks just outside and it works well, there are several small meeting rooms you dont have to book and we can use as random offices.
If anyone is interested in the trials and tribulations of trying to earn more than £680 I will add to the story but I dont want to prattle on.
We have moved 4 times, from a windowless self store, to a boutique small office, to a bland bigger one and ONLY NOW can I see how your work environment can really help you grow.
We are now in a very trendy complex right on the river in Liverpool, on one side is another agency going much longer than us and on the other side the studios of The Anfield Wrap. The place is buzzing with networking and events and the boardroom is the stuff of dreams, of 8 prospective clients we have had in 7 have signed up and that last one isnt dead yet!! We would never have had the client enthusiasm in our last office. Also going out for lunch with a client is so varied and can be a clincher, current favourite is Matou on top of the ferry building, no more getting a sarnie in.
We have a 6 man officer and 4 hot desks just outside and it works well, there are several small meeting rooms you dont have to book and we can use as random offices.
If anyone is interested in the trials and tribulations of trying to earn more than £680 I will add to the story but I dont want to prattle on.
DSLiverpool said:
If anyone is interested in the trials and tribulations of trying to earn more than £680 I will add to the story but I dont want to prattle on.
Please carry on! I find it interesting and love comparing your experiences to my own. PAYE and staff costs (including the compulsory pension s
te) are a nightmare. If I was doing it again I would push everyone in to being self employed. Trouble is last time I did that the chap thought that meant it was OK to sell extras to my clients and even steal them - because he was running a business. Guess you can't have it all!!Been an interesting read - thanks! I did the same last year, although different industry and it is a really steep learning curve, but also enjoyable.
In terms of cashflow, invoice discounting can help massively if you're finding customers being slow with payments. I didn't have to use it in the end, but can point you in the direction if needed?
Good luck!
In terms of cashflow, invoice discounting can help massively if you're finding customers being slow with payments. I didn't have to use it in the end, but can point you in the direction if needed?
Good luck!
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