s10 e1-4 The geriatric Entrepreneur with Jeremy Gray

Jeremy Gray – The Geriatric Entrepreneur
IBGR. Network. The World of Business at Your Fingertips

Is retirement not for you? Me neither! I have always known that
retirement did not hold any attraction for me. Those financial
product advertisement promising early retirement never resonated.
In season 10 we will look at how to launch your second career, in a
time of raising interest rates and a falling stock market. I invite you to
join me, as I build my business plan to escape the tyranny of the
clock which limits my earnings to the hours I work. Over the next five
years I plan to build an income portfolio that will support my family
into the future. Please join me as I plan that journey.

Intro to Season 10 Episode 1 

These are difficult times for folks who have retired or are about to retire. We are seeing the return to conditions not experienced in over thirty years. The value of your retirement savings are likely falling, while prices are rising at rates not seen in decades. If you read articles advising you how to weather this storm, the consensus seems to be, do not rush in to adjust your retirement portfolio, things done is a panic are not usually done well. Most articles suggest you plan for higher inflation of at least a couple of year and adjust your spending accordingly. By which they mean reduce your outgoings, or put another way, lower your standard of living.

One article I read this week suggested you should have a cash reserve of two years spending as a cushion. Fine if you have it, but most retirees depend on pension payments, maybe some rental income from property, none of which are likely to keep up with inflation. Depending on your health and the date you retire, your retirement could last well over twenty years So, what are you going to do? Accept an ever lower standard of living? Or dust of those skills you have developed during a lifetime of work and convert them into an income generating machine?  Have you considered becoming a coach or a consultant? 

Being a coach or consultant could well be right for you. The cost of starting out is relatively low. You will need a computer and a printer/scanner, which you probably already have. And neither of these need to fancy models, I have built a business using an entry level Dell computer and a simple Cannon printer. You will need a place to work, this could be a home office, or if your home environment is too distracting, a desk in a shared work space can be hired for relatively little money. I recommend you get a business e-mail address,  this not entirely essential you can get a professional looking e-mail address from one of the free email providers. Mine personal e-mail address is jeremy.pm.gray@live.com which does not look too bad but TopCat@gmail is not going to create the right impression.  But if you are going to be a coach or a consultant it is imperative that you keep up with latest business thinking. There is a lot of free information on the internet which can be invaluable. I say free, it is at the cost of providing your e-mail address and many providers want a business e-mail address before they will release their content to you. 

Of course the downside to these low barriers to entry is that there are many coaches and consultants out there and it will be challenging to stand out from a crowded field. And that leads me to some of the myths about being an entrepreneur. Myth 1) It will give you freedom.  Freedom to work where you want. Some truth in this statement but WFH has eroded a lot of this benefit versus being employed. Connectivity remains important.
​
Clients/customers may require face to face meetings Winning business without face to face meetings can be challenging Freedom to work when you want. Clients/customers/employees will schedule meetings, calls and deadlines You are expected to be available when needed. Clients/customers do not care you are on holiday. Problems need to be fixed as they occur. IT Most entrepreneurs work long hours.  Freedom to set your income Somewhat analogous to freedom to work when you want. – Work as much as you need to deliver the income you want. Average one person business in the US generates revenues of $44,000. Average employed earnings are $52K, median earnings are $34K. OK for a hobby business but not enough to give much flexibility if this is your full time income. Much of the work you will do is unpaid. – Finding customers, developing plans, learning new skills. Freedom from being an employee.
​
I trade one boss for many. Clients and their employees have demands, timetables and expectations. Myth 2) It gives you the opportunity to generate multi-generation wealth. Maybe not a myth because it is true a successful entrepreneur can make far more money than any employee – even a CEO of a large corporation. The top CEOs  in 2020 made $24.2 Million. Compare that with Jeff Bezos estimated worth of about $190 billion. In other words the average top CEO will need to work 7,500 years to match Jeff Bezos.  But its probably not going to happen. The failure rate of new businesses is high and most entrepreneurs would be better off being an employee and investing their funds into a index tracking fund. Even a successful company may not allow you to make more than you could as an employee. Myth 3 – All you need is a great idea. Firstly what you think is a great idea may not appeal to enough people to generate sufficient revenue. Lack of demand is considered to be a leading cause of failure for startups. Execution is more important than the idea.

Tags: How to grow a business, achieve business success, employee individualism, self-assessment, motivation, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes;  IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Geriatric Entrepreneur

Episode 2 Build a Speaking Practice.
Last week we learned how you can start building your brand and then ways to use that brand to monetize your skills. We looked at the steps needed to build a consulting or coaching business. And then how to break away from the tyranny of the clock, which limits your earnings to the hours you can work. If you can command $300 per hour, and very few consultants are able to charge more, then earnings more than $250,000 per year are possible. But wouldn’t it be nice to earn that, or more, working fewer hours.  We learned lessons from folks who has developed as systemized approach and others who had the courage to offer a premium product that could be sold over and over again.

To some extent this week we start by returning to a paid by hour activity. Building your own speaking practice. The difference? Once you have established your credibility as a speaker your hourly rate will be very very attractive. Event organizers often have a generous budget speakers. And why not? You will be speaking to hundreds if not thousands of people, imparting to each of them some of your ideas, experiences, and wisdom.

How can you start building your speaking practice? Well, do not make the mistake that Dori shares in her book “Entrepreneurial You” She prepared an attractive informational package including a professional produced DVD which she sent to prospective clients. When she followed up she was told that the package must have got lost. When this happened a couple of times Dori realized this was just a line. The attractive informational package had got thrown out, which is the way higher profile events treat unknown speakers. From this experience Dori constructed, what she calls, “Clark’s Law of Professional Speaking.”

1. At first no one is interested in having you speak
2. Then they are interested if they can get you for free
3. Eventually they are interested if they can get you cheap
4. Finally, they are intent of having you and they will pay you what you are worth.

Finding your first speaking gigs.
Dori’s first piece of advice is not to expect a speaker’s bureau to help you launch your speaking career. If you would like to learn her rationale buy her book. The kindle version is only a few dollars. 

Her second piece of advice is do not market yourself as a speaker. Outbound marketing is utterly ineffective is the advice of Michael Parrish DuDell, Entrepreneur, Keynote speaker and bestselling author. He has abandoned this approach.

Instead use “Inbound Marketing” to attract potential clients to you.  You can do this two ways. First ask contacts you know and like you to recommend you as a speaker. The second way is to create content that will attract potential clients to you. Dori tells of a blog post on Harvard Business Review that caught the attention of a professional association. That led to a paid webinar gig. But for most of us our first speaking engagements will be unpaid. 

Early on speaking for free is a perfectly valid strategy. It helps you practice and hone your skills and exposes you to an audience who may hire you. And that is the point, although you are speaking for free, you are really speaking for leads. If you listened to my show last week I talked about John Jantsch who developed a systemized market approach he called Duct Tape Marketing.  He would speak for free, deliver valuable content and he says, “Inevitably two or three people would come up to him after the talk to ask about the possibility of hiring his services” He goes on “If a free speaking gig leads to a consulting contract worth thousands of dollars it wasn’t free at all, it was well paid”

Here is my tip for folks who get engaged to speak at conferences. Do not sell during your talk. Focus on delivering interesting and informative content that demonstrates your expertise. I always got high scores for my presentations at CFO conferences by following these guidelines. It makes you stand out from the other speakers, often from the conference sponsors, whose presentations are more sales pitches than knowledge sharing.  You do your selling quietly, during the breakout sessions, there should always be folks who come up to you to tell you they enjoyed your talk. That’s when you let people know you are open to work.

To ensure you get the most out of your free speaking gigs make a list of the benefits that they could offer.  Connecting with influencers, testimonials, leads, etc. And do not forget to use your materials as a blog or YouTube Video. If the organizers are videoing the event ask them for permission to post it on your YouTube account.

When to charge and how much? As always transferring from providing free services to charging fees is a difficult step. As you begin to become busier your time becomes more valuable. Opportunity costs come into play. What else could you be doing as an alternative to giving that free talk? How much might that activity earn you? That is what triggered the change for me. 

How much to charge? Dori provides the following rule of thumb
Newbie speakers may earn $500 to $2,500 per talk
More established speakers, or those with a book $5,000 to $10,000 
Those with a book and other forms of social proof $10,000 to $20,000
Of course, high profile names can command much higher fees. 

More realistically most professional speakers will earn between $4,500 to $7,500 per talk. But do not forget many of the benefits you sought when speaking for free, potential to land contracts, sell your book etc. are still available to you. 

I mentioned earlier in this episode that outbound marketing rarely works but some folks have been successful. Grant Balwin who has made a comfortable living by speaking is one of those who have mastered what he calls guerilla marketing. To get started you need a website and a demo video. Dori had her demo professionally produced; Grant Balwin produced his own using a handicam. With the quality of the cameras available on your mobile phone these days you only need a stand and a ring light to produce a high-quality video. And do not spend a fortune on your website. I am a strong supporter of Word Press who make it easy to set up you own website. I have three websites all produced using Word Press.

How did Grant use his website and video to market his speaking practice? He used Google to search terms such as “Real Estate Conference” “Realtors Convention”  you can find gatherings for almost any industry using Google. Grant recommends you start your searches close to home and gradually expand your geographic reach.

When you reach out to the organizers do not make the mistake many speakers make, sending a long e-mail extolling their virtues, why they would make a great speaker, with a link to their site. Grant says do not do that, err on the side of brevity and follow up. I’ll attach an example of Grant’s typical email in my notes.

Like most things developing your speaking practice will take time. Do not expect overnight success, and while on  its own speaking is unlikely to make you rich, it can be a useful addition to your income portfolio.

Useful Tip:
Here is an example of Grant Baldwin’s initial contact e-mail. “Hi Jane, I came across your New York Student Council Conference in November. Looks awesome. I was just curious If you had started reviewing speakers yet. Thanks Grant” Notice Grant does not sell himself or attach a link to his website. He just askes. This often prompted a dialogue, and once you have achieved engagement you are one step nearer to closing the deal.
​
Tags: How to grow a business, achieve business success, employee individualism, self-assessment, motivation, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes;  IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Geriatric Entrepreneur

​

Episode 3 Leverage your platform by creating online courses
You have an expertise; you know others want to learn it because you have been building up your following. What can be more obvious than to develop an on-line course? The ultimate make it once, sell it many times. If only it was that easy. The truth is creating and launching a course is difficult.

That’s what Jared Kleinert found when he tried to launch a course called “Yourself with Wealth”. In a very transparent Forbes blog post he detailed his failure.

It started with three numbers $997, $11,000, $0. The first number $997 was the price that Jared intended to charge for his course. $11,000 was the amount he had spent preparing his course. $0 was the sales he achieved. 

What went wrong? As Kleinert puts it; “As entrepreneurs we like to chase the next shiny object, like a cool online course. In my rush to make a quick buck, I missed a vital step. I never interviewed my potential customers” Jared has moved onto other things but his advice to others thinking about launching an online course is “You have to build up over time. You have to ask your customers what they want. You need to build something they want, that is of value to them. Then scale that over time.”

A tip from Dorie’s book is give yourself a get out clause if your course does not sell well. She tells a story of Danny Iny who launched a course where only one customer signed up. For the next six months Danny had to prepare materials for this one customer. As he puts it “I worked six months of my life for that $1,000” If you market a course set a minimum number of sign-ups that will make the course viable and tell potential customers that the course is dependent on getting enough people to enroll. This is not unusual, my college set a minimum of 10 people to hold a class. 

How can you avoid being another Jared, another Danny or one of many others whose online courses have failed to achieve traction?
Step 1 Test your assumptions.

Danny Iny was not going to make the same mistake twice. For his next foray into on-line courses, he sent out an e-mail to his list of several thousand people offering fifty slots in a pilot of his course at a reduced price, with greater personal attention from him in return for detailed feedback as he developed the materials. This gave him the option to walk away if demand did not materialize.

Step 2 Listen to your audience. If someone asks you to teach them something, take that as a sign that there could be a larger audience for an offering you can develop. If you get such a request, ask folks you know whether they would be interested in learning more about the topic. If you get a positive response, you have established there is demand which you can monetize.

Step 3 Craft a compelling narrative. That’s what Jeff Walker did using an approach he calls “The Sideways Sales Letter” But Jeff does not use a letter, he uses video messages. He says, “It’s about standing out from the market by delivering value and doing it in a story-based way” There it is again, the advice which seems to be so common from successful entrepreneurs. deliver value before you sell. 

Jeff uses four videos to draw in customers.

The first video is the “Headline” It’s about the journey or the opportunity.

The second video makes the “Headline” real. It contains a strong educational component as it is an overview of the material that will be taught in the course.

The third video  covers the “What’s in it for me?” question. This video also provides educational value and delivers useful strategies. But this video beginnings to pivot to the sales message, explaining here is what we are offering, what you will get out of it and what the course will be like.

The fourth video will be the overt sales pitch. By building trust and delivering value in the earlier videos your audience will be more receptive to your ask.

Walker recommends you issue the videos over a two-week period. Once released set out a short and clearly defined period when people are allowed to buy the course. Typically, three to seven days. Walker describes this as “cart open” and “cart close.” This gives people a compelling reason to purchase now.

Considering offering a pilot: Your course content, materials and presentation will improve over time. In recognition of this consider offering a pilot program at a reduced cost. Limit the number of signups. The idea of exclusivity and low cost should appeal to your audience. 

Danny Iny notes “A pilot can be anything from a live event to a series of coaching calls to an email or video course” The basis should always be towards something you can deploy as quickly and as easily as possible. Think of your pilot as market research, If it does not go so well, that’s not a bad sign, it’s a data point.

Price your course right. There is a wide range of prices for courses out there. How do you know what to charge? You have a range of prices you could consider from the very top of what the market will bear to the minimum you need to survive. Everything in between is positioning. You can differentiate your course based on what your competitors are offering, the level of depth and experience you bring to the course, the level of support you are going to offer, and the results that your participants can expect. In Dorie’s mind, which accords with my thinking, the level of personal attention you provide is the key differentiating feature. I recognize this is back to being paid for your time but by leveraging it as part of your course you can make the hourly rate very attractive. And as you achieve success you can emulate Michael Port of “Book Yourself Solid” fame and delegate some of the personal time to trained associates. 

In conclusion the questions you should ask yourself as you plan your online course:

• What topics do others consistently ask you for advice? Would it be possible to develop that into a course?
• Can you summarize your idea in less than a page? Can you identify fifty people who might be interested? Send your summary to them for their reaction. If 10% respond positively strongly consider developing the course
• How long will it take for your candidates to see the results?
• Can folks learn for themselves using video modules? Or does it require more support from you personally?
• What would the most effective course you can offer look like? What will you teach, when and how?
• What price point will make this a win for your participants? Is this a win for you too?

​Tags: How to grow a business, achieve business success, employee individualism, self-assessment, motivation, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes;  IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Geriatric Entrepreneur

​

Episode 4 Lower cost options – Help all your followers.
You can cater to the rich, and I’ll take the rest; the good Lord made more of them.

Kemmons Wilson founder Holiday Inn

Not everyone can afford to spend a couple of thousands of dollars for a course. And it is likely that many of your followers fall into that category. They have been devouring your free content and would love to buy something from you. But $2000? That’s way beyond their budget. If you have built up a decent following it is possible to generate an attractive income from a $100 product or even a $10 product.

Jason Van Orden of Internet Business Mastery thinks of these varied product offerings as ascension ladder. He says it is foolish to only think of selling big ticket items. Instead, you must think about customer lifetime value. A customer spending $25 per month over five years is worth $1,500. And done right your marginal cost of serving this customer can be near zero. That $1,500 is pure profit.

And the folks who do buy your big-ticket items. will be interested in your lower cost options and they can certainly afford them. 

In this episode we will look at some low-cost options you can consider. 

Write an e-book. 
A low dollar ticket item which is relatively easy to produce and sell, an e-book is the choice of many consultants coaches etc.  A typical e-book is between 12,000 words and 25,000 words. Writing 500 words an hour of quality content should be within the abilities of most folks, especially if you are writing on a topic you know well.  A commitment of 24 to 50 hours. 

Self-publishing on Amazon gives you access potentially to huge audience. I say potentially, Amazon lists 33 million titles on its website, how are buyers going to find your book amongst all that noise? The good news? Sales of a few hundred physical books will get you on to Amazons top seller list.  Somewhat more sales are needed for e-books. Announcing the publication of your e-book to your email subscribers may give you right to call yourself a best-selling author. Of course, achieving best seller status will greatly increase the chances that a casual browser on Amazon will find your book amongst the other 33 million titles.

I did find an article on Observer.com where the author claims to have achieved best seller status in 5 minutes and for the cost of $3. For a link to that article Ctrl+Click here. Incidentally another website offered me the chance to read the same article for $14.95!

There are a couple of potential drawbacks with self-publishing on Amazon. Firstly, they do not share with authors the email address of people who buy their books. Which limits the potential to use your book to enhance your subscriber base.  Steve “SJ” Scott who has published over 40 books with Amazon puts links into his e-books which allows readers who want to learn more about the topic to assess additional information. The links take the readers to Scott’s website where he encourages them to join his subscriber base. 

The second potential drawback is that Amazon has created a benchmark for the cost of an e-book, although as an author you are free to set any price you like. But folks have become accustomed to not paying much beyond $10.00 for an e-book. If your e-book contains particularly valuable content it may be more profitable to publish and sell the book on your own website.

Host a virtual summit
For another low cost offering, in this case free, for your potential customers, consider launching a virtual summit. I think these must be a hot topic these days. Researching for this show I found many sites purporting to tell you how to prepare and launch a virtual summit, but bombarding the viewer with offers to sign up for this and sign up for that. I guess the owners of these site had not been following the guidance of experts like Dorie, Michael Port etc. about giving advice for free and building a following.  

Why consider hosting a virtual summit?

The audience gets valuable information for free. Well for the price of their e-mail address at least. No email address – no access to the summit. 

The presenters get exposure. Video is more personal than a blog or podcast, a good presenter can build a rapport with audience and build credibility much faster than with more traditional approaches.
Presenters will likely promote your event amongst their audience. Especially if you can snag an A list keynote speaker. They will be delighted to tell their followers that they are appearing with Ms X or Mr Y. Do not expect your A lister to actively promote the event. Rely on your B list presenters for that.

As the host you will seen as someone delivering value and as a thought leader. Afterall without you, the event would not have happened, and your audience will be appreciative of the information you have made available to them. And you will be building solid connections with speakers who are experts in your field.

I would not blame you if you were thinking this is a lot of work to do for nothing. There is a way to monetize your offer. It’s a twist on the freemium pricing strategy. Folks can watch for free while the summit is in progress, but if they want to watch again, or watch sessions they missed, they must pay for access to those videos. Often referred to as an all-access pass. 

If you are thinking a virtual summit sounds like something you want to know more about I did find a useful article published by convertkit which contains helpful information without the annoying pop-up sales pitches. To read it Ctrl+Click here.

Build a subscription service.
When you provide regular valuable content you can consider a subscription service. If you have a large enough base you may be able to support it through ads. But you will increase stickiness, that is measured by how long people access your content, if you can make the service so attractive that people are willing to pay to visit your site. Use a variation of the freemium pricing strategy, folks get free access for a week or so. After that they have to subscribe. A great advantage of providing a subscription service is that it generates a more predictable income stream. A nice to have in the boom-and-bust world of entrepreneurship.

Build an Online community
They signed up for the information, they stayed for the community, That how Jason Van Orden describes his experience running The Academy. The key to creating an online community that is worth people parting with their hard-earned cash is active curation with an involved moderator making sure discussions are both civil and useful can encourage folks to subscribe and with automatic renewal the default you have a site which has a high retention rate. Typically, such sites charge $25 to $100 per month. Tip – offer an annual renewal at significant discount to encourage this option. Not only do you get the money sooner, but most folks will also not remember that their subscription is coming due and will renew automatically. Even if you take the more ethical approach and advise your subscriber in advance of their renewal date, you will find most folks will sign up for another year. It may even rekindle their interest in your site.

Next week I will discuss how you should manage and build your e-mail list.

Contact Details
mailto:jeremy@business-in-asia.org
Or schedule time via Calendly:
https://calendly.com/3-continents-consulting
My websites include:
https://business-in-asia.org/
https://thegeriatricentrepreneur.com/
https://thedentistscfo.com/
My LinkedIn URL
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-gray1