New Internet Business

charliedavis

I want to share with you how I launched my company online 2 years ago with NO money upfront. It is possible.

- I purchased a website template and used Microsoft FrontPage to create a website that looked corporate
- I spent every evening and every weekend learning website marketing techniques to get my website on the frontpage of Google when people searched for various terms that described my services. This was while working fulltime
- I learned how to use Google AdWords advertising (Pay Per Click). This is incredibly powerful and has led to me acquiring regular clients such as Npower, Lloyds TSB and Aldi. However it's hard to use and you may need to attend an AdWords course to avoid wasting hundreds of pounds.
- My first client was the RAC....
- I cut down to part-time working hours and started interviewing freelance staff members
- I took on a Virtual Assistant to help me with admin tasks and answering the phone
- After 4 months I had to quit my part-time job ( I was a secondary school teacher ICT and Business Studies) as I was so busy with my new business
- I took my first permanent member of staff on after 10 months
- After 2 years I now employ 3 full time members of staff, 20 freelance staff and turn over £35k per month

It CAN be done from nothing. Just take it from me - please save for that tax bill before it comes, and don't spend the money before you earn it. Accountants may tell you you can take directors loans but I so wish I hadn't, and had reinvested instead of spending all the profits. I'm now having to learn the hard way.

By the way, a great book to read about cheap marketing is Guerilla marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. Jay does lots of excellent marketing books, some of them are also available as mp3s from audible.com.

Good luck!

poppin_2

Thanks for that CharlieDavis, I am quite passionate about what I am trying to achieve and it is reassuring to hear from people who was in the same position but has made it a real success! I have also made a note to look into google adwords more indepthly as I only have a loose understanding of how that works at present.

Thanks again.

lcharm

Wow Charlie, sounds like a really good success story.

Do mind me asking what your business is? Don't worry I'm not planning to copy i'm training to be an IFA atm!!!

save-a-lot

lcharm wrote: »

Wow Charlie, sounds like a really good success story.

Do mind me asking what your business is? Don't worry I'm not planning to copy i'm training to be an IFA atm!!!

Look into Charlies profile, there is a link to his website

charliedavis

lcharm wrote: »

Wow Charlie, sounds like a really good success story.

Do mind me asking what your business is? Don't worry I'm not planning to copy i'm training to be an IFA atm!!!

Hiya I set up an IT training business but to be honest it could have been anything as the business lessons are the same in any field.

I have since set up a couple of other small businesses including a website directory of reiki, tarot, NLP courses etc, plus a soft skills training company, and also a review site for home study courses. I like to keep myself busy - although probably took on too much to be honest in retrospect. I opened 3 branches pretty quickly.

Interesting what you said about copying - to be honest good luck to anyone who wants to try - I put 100 hours per week for over a year into setting this up so I really wish anyone good luck who trys lol :rotfl: (However I LOVED every minute of these hours, although it was stressful).

Please do PM me if you want any further help - I would love to give something back to others thinking of setting up a business.

lcharm

I can imagine! Sounds exciting too. I love business too. Once I finish my financial adviser training i'll be working self employed because it's the most lucrative option for me and it will be hard work achieving clients much in the same way yours obviosuly had. Well done (not that you need to be told!!!!)

dacouch

If you need any advice pop into business link or go to their website oin the following link.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/home?domain=www.businesslink.gov.uk&target=http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/

It is run by the goverment and their services are free, it is designed to assist new and existing businesses with running their business.

Good luck I hope it all goes well for you

P.S Don't forget to make sure your website is as optimised for google as possible, if your not sure how to do it ask on MSE, there are people on here who can give you good advice. A lot of the optimizing is very simple and costs nothing but will mean much more visitors to your site