Will
12-04-10, 09:25 PM
Hi All,
I am new to this forum but am keen to get involved and chat to more business owners out there. I am also going to start posting up daily reviews to how the day has gone, thoughts and whether I hit my objectives or not and would be very keen for member’s of this community to comment on whether they think I am doing things right or wrong and also throw me any suggestions that you may have. I am a regular reader of other people’s blogs and notice that athletes, business people, gamblers, etc that are the most successful and focused will often have a blog or diary to detail their progress and learn from others.
To start, I am 27 and have been in business with my girlfriend for roughly 7 years. We started in business together one year after being in a relationship together and exactly when we were both in third year uni. We both were in the penultimate years of our Economics degree and desperately wanted to avoid any sort of corporate job or 9-5 commitment. I wanted to be in business because I knew that it was the only type of lifestyle I wanted to live and I think she was more into it because she thought it meant more money.
Setting Up
To date, I have never worked 9-5 full time for a corporation of any sort and will list it as one of the crowning achievements in my life if I was to list my best results so far. However, I would never describe starting a business as rainbows and lollipops and had to support myself part time with various jobs at odd hours in the first few years like cold calling, call centres, working at a pub ( which I lasted only 2 nights since I hated it) and pizza delivery ( which I thought was the most fun job ever).
Current Situation
Our current turnover is still around the $300K mark but we have just finished the paper work for a business purchase of a kid’s gifts and clothing store in Dulwich Hill. That now extends our portfolio to a few more businesses and will mean that by the end of the year our cash flow will be up to the $600K mark and next year we will tip the 7 figure mark. The cash cow of it all is still the music school www.shinemusic.com.au (http://www.shinemusic.com.au/), it is 7 years old and we have applied every business trick we know to help it grow and leverage ourselves so that only one of us only turns up to work about 15 hours a week. The staff can run the show, I can focus on other things.
Other businesses include online marketing, webcarts and affiliate marketing. I am aiming to purchase another business by the end of the year once the bank believes we can service more unsecured loans well. My businesses are mostly B to C where I think the tricks that I know work the best.
Business Philosophy
I think above all, a business should never be something that you are chained to or have to turn up to everyday. You should be able to have days off, or just be away from the business whilst it is still fully operating. Otherwise, you just have a high paying job, and not a business. For the business to grow and make good profits, a business owner needs to continually learn and apply new strategies to ensure they stay ahead of the pack, the same way Roger Federer might continue to train hard and improve his forehand or how Apple will research and release their next awesome product.
I have read a whole library of business books to ensure I am constantly reminded of business strategies and am up to date with the latest tricks like videos, SEO, social media, online marketing, call to action, voip, outsourcing, guru.com, SMS, elance.com, systemising, sales, etc and will attend seminars and workshops to ensure I am reminded on what’s out there and how to use it.
My favourite books to date are:
The Fountainhead – Always look for my passions and fulfil my own objectives and not others. Just be the best one can be.
E-Myth – Truly outlined what an optimal small business should look like
Billionaire In Training – An excellent read on the best way to grow is to buy out other average businesses rather than trying to expand by yourself and in only one particular business. Be in the business of being in business.
Purple Cow – Your business needs to be different and unique in a certain way or other to ensure good margins and high profits.
I am currently working through Tim Ferris’ Four Hour Work Week and highly recommend it to everybody.
All around me I see businesses fail, especially since I frequent Westfields and see such a high turnover of businesses there. To think somebody just lost $100,000K because they did not prepare properly or did not have the correct mindset just makes me think that person should really have stuck to their day job. This year I have enlisted the services of a business coach to keep my focused, who I highly recommend, PM me if you would like an intro.
Interests
In 2008, when I first toyed with leverage, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands so I learnt how to play poker. I mostly play online now and also with friends, if you are keen to join my weekly poker night, feel free to PM me. It is my goal that I buyin to the World Series of Poker in Vegas in 2011. I also play oztag and basketball weekly for social competitions to keep me fit. I can’t imagine life without sport. Lately I have developed an interest in fishing and hope to hook a big fat sambo or tailor off a beach somewhere when the next public holiday rolls around.
Both poker and fishing are very similar to business and I use them both to maintain self discipline amongst other characters.
Background
I grew up in the Western Suburbs of Sydney in Granville of all places. Due to my Asian up bringing, my mum made sure I stayed ahead in maths and I performed alright at school, yes I went to a selective school. I went to University of New South Wales to study marketing, what I always wanted to learn, but eventually changed to economics since I was so disappointed in how they taught the subject.
Uni introduced to me a life that was liberal, where I was free to do whatever I wanted. Be it drink, party, chase girls, play sport or volunteer work (AIESEC). Through the course of it all, I wanted this type of liberal lifestyle to never end and knew that only if I was to be in business would I be truly happy. All my high mark friends around me went and got graduate recruitment jobs where as I decided to take out my first commercial lease start learning the ropes to starting out and growing a business. Never did I feel that I was doing the wrong thing or have doubted this path.
Looking forward to everybody’s comments and also learning from everybody in this forum. I am generally a modest, non-materialistic and reserved person, but if I put my business owner hat on, then I only know how to be a capitalist beast.
Check out my daily log thread here: Will's Entrepreneurship Extravaganza Log - Entrepreneur Forum for Australian Small Business (http://www.aussietycoon.com/showthread.php?p=4409#post4409)
I am new to this forum but am keen to get involved and chat to more business owners out there. I am also going to start posting up daily reviews to how the day has gone, thoughts and whether I hit my objectives or not and would be very keen for member’s of this community to comment on whether they think I am doing things right or wrong and also throw me any suggestions that you may have. I am a regular reader of other people’s blogs and notice that athletes, business people, gamblers, etc that are the most successful and focused will often have a blog or diary to detail their progress and learn from others.
To start, I am 27 and have been in business with my girlfriend for roughly 7 years. We started in business together one year after being in a relationship together and exactly when we were both in third year uni. We both were in the penultimate years of our Economics degree and desperately wanted to avoid any sort of corporate job or 9-5 commitment. I wanted to be in business because I knew that it was the only type of lifestyle I wanted to live and I think she was more into it because she thought it meant more money.
Setting Up
To date, I have never worked 9-5 full time for a corporation of any sort and will list it as one of the crowning achievements in my life if I was to list my best results so far. However, I would never describe starting a business as rainbows and lollipops and had to support myself part time with various jobs at odd hours in the first few years like cold calling, call centres, working at a pub ( which I lasted only 2 nights since I hated it) and pizza delivery ( which I thought was the most fun job ever).
Current Situation
Our current turnover is still around the $300K mark but we have just finished the paper work for a business purchase of a kid’s gifts and clothing store in Dulwich Hill. That now extends our portfolio to a few more businesses and will mean that by the end of the year our cash flow will be up to the $600K mark and next year we will tip the 7 figure mark. The cash cow of it all is still the music school www.shinemusic.com.au (http://www.shinemusic.com.au/), it is 7 years old and we have applied every business trick we know to help it grow and leverage ourselves so that only one of us only turns up to work about 15 hours a week. The staff can run the show, I can focus on other things.
Other businesses include online marketing, webcarts and affiliate marketing. I am aiming to purchase another business by the end of the year once the bank believes we can service more unsecured loans well. My businesses are mostly B to C where I think the tricks that I know work the best.
Business Philosophy
I think above all, a business should never be something that you are chained to or have to turn up to everyday. You should be able to have days off, or just be away from the business whilst it is still fully operating. Otherwise, you just have a high paying job, and not a business. For the business to grow and make good profits, a business owner needs to continually learn and apply new strategies to ensure they stay ahead of the pack, the same way Roger Federer might continue to train hard and improve his forehand or how Apple will research and release their next awesome product.
I have read a whole library of business books to ensure I am constantly reminded of business strategies and am up to date with the latest tricks like videos, SEO, social media, online marketing, call to action, voip, outsourcing, guru.com, SMS, elance.com, systemising, sales, etc and will attend seminars and workshops to ensure I am reminded on what’s out there and how to use it.
My favourite books to date are:
The Fountainhead – Always look for my passions and fulfil my own objectives and not others. Just be the best one can be.
E-Myth – Truly outlined what an optimal small business should look like
Billionaire In Training – An excellent read on the best way to grow is to buy out other average businesses rather than trying to expand by yourself and in only one particular business. Be in the business of being in business.
Purple Cow – Your business needs to be different and unique in a certain way or other to ensure good margins and high profits.
I am currently working through Tim Ferris’ Four Hour Work Week and highly recommend it to everybody.
All around me I see businesses fail, especially since I frequent Westfields and see such a high turnover of businesses there. To think somebody just lost $100,000K because they did not prepare properly or did not have the correct mindset just makes me think that person should really have stuck to their day job. This year I have enlisted the services of a business coach to keep my focused, who I highly recommend, PM me if you would like an intro.
Interests
In 2008, when I first toyed with leverage, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands so I learnt how to play poker. I mostly play online now and also with friends, if you are keen to join my weekly poker night, feel free to PM me. It is my goal that I buyin to the World Series of Poker in Vegas in 2011. I also play oztag and basketball weekly for social competitions to keep me fit. I can’t imagine life without sport. Lately I have developed an interest in fishing and hope to hook a big fat sambo or tailor off a beach somewhere when the next public holiday rolls around.
Both poker and fishing are very similar to business and I use them both to maintain self discipline amongst other characters.
Background
I grew up in the Western Suburbs of Sydney in Granville of all places. Due to my Asian up bringing, my mum made sure I stayed ahead in maths and I performed alright at school, yes I went to a selective school. I went to University of New South Wales to study marketing, what I always wanted to learn, but eventually changed to economics since I was so disappointed in how they taught the subject.
Uni introduced to me a life that was liberal, where I was free to do whatever I wanted. Be it drink, party, chase girls, play sport or volunteer work (AIESEC). Through the course of it all, I wanted this type of liberal lifestyle to never end and knew that only if I was to be in business would I be truly happy. All my high mark friends around me went and got graduate recruitment jobs where as I decided to take out my first commercial lease start learning the ropes to starting out and growing a business. Never did I feel that I was doing the wrong thing or have doubted this path.
Looking forward to everybody’s comments and also learning from everybody in this forum. I am generally a modest, non-materialistic and reserved person, but if I put my business owner hat on, then I only know how to be a capitalist beast.
Check out my daily log thread here: Will's Entrepreneurship Extravaganza Log - Entrepreneur Forum for Australian Small Business (http://www.aussietycoon.com/showthread.php?p=4409#post4409)