Jeremy Hall – Confessions of a serial entrepreneur

The end of an interesting month

The end of an interesting month. A month of European turmoil, a worsening of US Government debt rating, riots, UK stock market fluctuations bla, bla, bla. All this is headline grabbing journalism, but what is happening on the street!
Well this week I dropped into the most highly rated restaurant in Beaconsfield and started to have a conversation with the owner. He has had a shocking month, absolutely no different to numerous other people I have spoken to since my return from holiday two weeks ago.
Roll on September!!

As we rip into our company credit information development website

As we rip into our company credit information development website, I am already starting to think about some key issues. Unlike our new leasing website, this site is written in “cold fusion.” There is a rationale to the use of this development language and that is about how we present the credit reports. However, it does not allow me to make changes internally to the site. I will take this up with the developer to see what we can do.
We are limiting our offer of a free iPad to the first 100 customers. I want to manually keep a count on the front page of the website to entice companies to take up the offer quickly. We can put a back stop on the site, i.e. “this incentive terminates on the 30th September” but I think we will get more impact by showing the world we have limited stock of these iPads and they are being offered on a first come first serve basis.
As marketing campaigns go, I do not have a clue how successful this will be.

We have internally set out a target for the remaining part of 2011

We have internally set out a target for the remaining part of 2011 for our company credit information division. We have two key performance indicators:
1. New customers
2. Revenue

To entice new customers we are looking to run a scheme where if you sign up to two year “Gold” package (at a cost of £1,000.00+VAT) you get a free iPad. It makes the deal fantastic for our customers but not so good for us. My strategy is to quickly build the customer base. Now I expect that 50% of companies that sign up to this will just be after the free iPad, and after two years we will never hear from them again. However, if we can keep the remaining 50% and get them to resign in years three and four, then we will have a worthwhile marketing model.
We are to launch this early September as and when the new site is up and running.

On the subject of websites

On the subject of websites, we have revamped our company credit information website, www.westwon.biz. Now this is a cottage industry business. I do not envisage this department making a million but it does provide a decent revenue stream and helps the overall branding of what we are doing.
We have simplified our customer offering –
1. We used to offer five company credit reports, we now only offer three
2. Customers can sign up for one of four packages, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. This was never the case previously, the benefit being we can simplifiy end user pricing
3. We have done away with two of our product offerings, a service called Detective reports – an idea I had that turned out to be a complete flop and the ability for customers to buy a one off report by credit card.
The pay as you go credit card facility is offered by many of our competitors. You go online, and buy a company credit report 24/7 using a credit card. To make this a success, we would need to invest significantly in Google Adwords, a strategy that will not generate a profitable return.

Our new website has been built in WordPress

Our new website has been built in WordPress. This is a free tool that developers can use to build a site, reasonably easily with little expense. Mostly, people/companies use it to create a blog – this site www.jeremyhall.co.uk is a WordPress site.
My key reason for using WordPress to build our new WestWon leasing website is that it allows us to add or change the content. In January this year when there was the snow, we had limited staff cover in the office. With WordPress, I could remotely dial in and put a comment of the front page telling the world that if you did not get an answer when calling our company, not to worry, we are still in business.
By adding to the site of a daily, weekly basis, we are keeping the content fresh and the search engines like – a reward – a dynamic site. Importantly, we can do this in- house quickly and easily with no need to go to an external designer to make some minor change.

It is interesting how many people have commented to me recently…

It is interesting how many people have commented to me recently that we have a “holding page – website currently under construction.” We have been very slow in putting together the content for our new site, it is one of the problems with limited resources. The annoying thing is we are sending out a poor message about our company by not having a live website at present.
We all visit numerous websites every day. We will form an opinion about the company, their professionalism from spending maybe less than 30 seconds looking at their website. Your website will send out a message – we are a big company, or we are a small company, we are expensive, cheap. What I find interesting is how many companies develop a website then never update it.

I ask myself a simple question

I ask myself a simple question, will we recoup the £600 cost of the two minute video? Will people even click to watch it and even if they do, will the feel compelled to sign up with us?
I do not really think we have a choice here. The internet is awash with some amazing websites and most prospects who have not heard of us will form an opinion on our business by simply looking at our website. The video will add a quality feel to our website and will set us apart from those smaller competitors who just have a few pages to show they are a real company.
So yes, I do envisage making our money back on our web investment

Video shoot

I am reliably informed that if your website does not have video, it is a bit like not having a website in the first place. So today we have the video production company in to shoot the two minute video.
I have already written the script and sketched out in my mind what the video will look like. However, as the video is to show a live working supplier log in system for our leasing business, I find myself ready to start but with no demonstration data. It is just not appropriate to have a video using customers confidential data.
This process takes me best part of an hour to complete, we then run through our script over the next couple of hours, the camera still rolling. Amazingly, by 6:00pm we have a working two minute video that has been cut to perfection.

August 22nd

I meet with my business partner in our light bulb distribution company. We have been selling “lamps” on the internet for many years now. With the changes in the market, not just in how products are sold, but what types of products are sold, there is still a massive opportunity.
We have here a “bricks and mortar business.” A company that has been trading eleven years, ten staff, a large warehouse with 250,000 lights bulbs in stock, a business fulfilling 20,000 plus orders per year.
He has invested in a good website and accounting software so we have all the box’s ticked for what should be a highly successful division of the company – internet sales directly to the end user.
Driving home I think to myself how we have a great business here operating in a growth market with everything in place for me to create my own separate brand. So we are clear, as a 50% shareholder in the company, anything I would do in this market I would always include my other business partner in.
Yet again, I come back to the basics, it is setting up a fresh business in a tough environment and I ask myself a simple question, will it make me £1m?
This is a real problem with this challenge I have set myself. Even in the good times it is hard to set up a business, develop it and then sell it quickly for a significant profit.
My time is being consumed just doing the day job, earning a living from my core leasing company. Raising the funds and finding the time to take risks on a new business venture is hard. You can only run with a rock solid idea. Finding the ideas is never a problem, finding the right idea where I can make a million is not so easy.

Taking an idea to a finished product is great fun

Taking an idea to a finished product is great fun. Researching, designing it, producing the product then dressing it to sell is the exciting part.
I speak to people every week that have some great business idea, and most of these ideas stall at the idea stage. Today, in an environment where there is a lack of funding and many business people just focusing on survival, too few good ideas advance anywhere from the idea stage.
Speaking to a long term friend in the software sector, she was telling me how difficult new business sales are presently. Companies just do not want to invest. Even though I can see all the benefits of investing in my software product, the timing is just not right.