A balancing act...

Apparently the key to running a successful business is balancing the books. Well, I haven’t got much to balance at the moment, several tenders for work out this week and waiting to hear if I am successful so the expenses definitely outweigh the income at the moment. I took a big breath at the start of the week and, through my hands over my eyes, opened up my bank balance to see what hideous impact Christmas and the last few weeks have had on my finances. Breathed a sigh of relief that the mortgage had gone through and bills were all paid.

Realistically though, even if every tender came good, I won’t be paying myself a wage for a few weeks so I need to remain being “self-employed frugal”. During lunch, I scour the paper and internet for savings to be had and ‘money-off’ coupons – I’m turning into my Mum. (Mind you, I got 50% off my MOT which is due next month so can’t be all bad). I’m used to just buying whatever I fancy in the supermarket, but now you will find me stood in the aisle with a pained expression on my face trying doing mental arithmetic working out the value of two for one offers.

Balance has also been a theme of my work this week, mainly in proposal and tender work. I have no problem in putting together creative marketing campaigns or a full breakdown of how I will undertake the work but when it comes to costing out my time, I’m still learning. Many people advised me when I first set-out on this self-employed quest “don’t undersell yourself”. Good advice one would assume. However, the balancing act I’ve been learning is trying to sell yourself at an attractive rate in order to have a shot at winning the work whilst also trying to make a living.

Had a coffee this week with an old buddy of mine Gus. He’s a one-man-fundraising-machine and for those of you who have had the pleasure of travelling on the Red Funnel ferries to the tropical Isle of Wight, you may have seen a crazy man either sitting on a rowing machine or push bike on the top deck of the boat (in all weathers), rowing and cycling stationary thousands of miles and raising thousands of pounds for charity. I’m going help Gus out with some PR for one of his next challenges of rowing 100k for Sport Relief – hats off to you Gus. Follow Gus’s challenges on www.bombayduckchallenge.com

In between proposal and tender work this week I’ve also been climbing the social network ladder (to all of the fans of Zzing Marketing on Facebook now – howdy campers!) Yup, the Facebook page for Zzing is set up and linked to Zzing’s Twitter site (@zzingmarketing) and LinkedIn profile. But for all of you techie-kids out there, tapping away on your Macbook or zipping away on your i-phone, Zzing now has a blog too – www.zzingmarketing.blogspot.com ; again linked to all the other Zzing sites and where you can read this rambling montage of a diary online at your leisure.

It’s damn time consuming though. Online marketing is cost effective in comparison to other forms of promotion, however, as I discussed with another good friend Abi Hillier this week - who runs a very funky company called Grasshopper Porridge www.teamgrasshopper.com (beautiful pots of goodness whenever you want) - the real cost to any company is the time it takes to manage your online presence on a daily basis. It’s also a bugger to understand the language and instructions to make the most of your online promotion. Now I know that a lot of the techie-world are Star Trek geeks fans, but do they really need to speak in Klingon when writing online instructions? I’m sure it’s just a cunning ploy to keep tech support people in Atlanta in a job.....

I’ve been on the phone quite a bit this week, catching up with contacts and suppliers, but most of my phone bill this month is going on cold calling as the follow-up to last weeks mailshot to the local politicians. In my previous job, I could tell a cold call from the first utterance the cold-caller made – “Hi! How are you? Did you have a good weekend? Isn’t this weather terrible?.... “ yadder, yadder, yadder. A horrible and ineffective way of trying to make me your best friend and buy your product. But I had to call the politicians up this week so deep breath and dialled the numbers.

Not one of the buggers was in. What do they do all day??? What do we pay our taxes for??? (Oh, I forgot, I can’t grumble about that for a while).

I hate cold-calling.

Next week, Estate Agents! (No, I don’t know why, working as my own boss, I have chosen this as my second target market either).

Mind you, it’s all about building the brand which I am taking the first steps in doing for Zzing. The strength of branding was underlined this week with the story about Cadbury’s being bought by Kraft. The UK public obviously have a huge affinity with the Cadbury brand (or are we all just addicted to Dairy Milk?) and the outpouring in the media from the public about not letting one of the UK’s best loved brands be sold was interesting to see. I’m sure the Radio 2 listeners wouldn’t be as incensed with Greggs the Bakers being taken over by MacDonald’s.

I should use this last point to outline my services in helping building your companies brand to the same echelons’ of Cadburys - but you know the score, give me a call....