Clues You Can Use in Our Services Page

You may have noticed that along with our recent graphics redesign, we’ve reorganized the entire PassingThru site as well. This was done to reflect a narrower focus on simplicity, work-life integration and travel. Somehow we managed to have the redesign coincide with our personal shift to location independence, even with a belated decision leaving us only about 10 days for the facelift itself. But, in the midst of all that change, we inexplicably didn’t introduce you to the new stuff on the site!  We really do want you to know that we’ve populated our Resource pages with helpful assists you can use to get yourself going on a similar pathway. So it’s time we talked about them!

Starting with our Services page, there are some pretty significant clues about how we actually accomplished our objectives so that Pete could quit his job. The first portion bullets our skills and strengths – can you tell we’re highly leveraged in marketing? Read between the lines and you’ll figure out the elements that comprise our our own business endeavors:

1. services to other businesses that we do via monthly retainer or by the project: consulting, communications services – including direct mail, social media and email marketing; and
2. services to consumers – an online store, an invitation-only travel club, and an online travel booking site.

This might sound pretty complicated, but there was deliberation involved that accompanied the organic growth, really! One of our goals was income diversification. Even though as a business owner one of the most fun things is that you don’t have to worry about someone firing you, you still don’t want to be overly dependent upon one revenue source. Just as people who are employed can suddenly find themselves out of a job, so can an important client’s needs change. Filling the hopper with a variety of projects makes us less vulnerable to income stoppage and the having to scramble that goes along with it.

At one point, I was pretty confused about all the plates we had in the air. I used some cool mapping software developed by Tufts University called Visual Understanding Environment to design a flowchart that organized it all in a way that I, a visual processor, could work with. What it showed us was revealing: we could see whether our time was being spent in good accord with existing and potential income sources. Conversely, it revealed where we were spinning our wheels. This increased focus led to a more strategic mindset, assisted by valuable quarterly group sessions with business coach Alan Furst. Over a period of time with Alan’s guidance, I began thinking less like a worker bee and more about leading the business into additional growth.

Our division of labor is made according to our individual strengths. At this phase, now that Pete’s primary focus is PassingThru Enterprises, too, we’re evaluating new opportunities as to how they dovetail or replicate what we already have. I actually spreadsheeted our ongoing task list – it has 10 “client project categories” not including the online store. One of my challenges is assigning priorities – sometimes the client is ourselves on the task list and I don’t always like to put us last.

What all of this might tell you is that we are in a unique position to help you, if you’re thinking of getting started along a similar path. We will continue to share what has worked for us, as well as where we’ve stumbled. We can help you get realistic about what you can expect in terms of revenue, and the discipline you’ll need to bootstrap a venture similar to ours, even if you’re starting with few skills, like we did. This is definitely not a get-rich-quick pathway, but it’s a way to develop and diversify with a Plan “B” for those whose Plan “A” isn’t doing the trick. If you want to talk about this in a more specific way, here’s our contact form.

The other part of our Services page is devoted to our “Online All-Stars.” These are folks who have assisted us along our journey. We confidently and enthusiastically recommend each one of the “All-Stars,” and have included a short description of their areas of specialty. You’ll see them included at right in the sidebar thumbnails as well. We have ongoing business and personal relationships with our “All-Stars,” each of whom we encountered online as we were finding our way. Now it feels like somewhat of a small-town community amidst the big scary Internet to have these resources in our corner.

The objective behind our Resource pages was to filter through several years of study and evaluation of service providers and informational resources, and then share them with you. Some of the people and products we’ve encountered have been real duds, or mediocre. Others are above and beyond. Just like anything else, it’s valuable to have opinions and referrals available to you when you are making decisions. These are people and products you can trust. It’s just that simple.

In future posts, we’ll be visiting the other Resource pages we’ve compiled as part of our blog redesign. I should mention that we were heavily influenced by Derek Halpern’s recommendations in a number of critiques he did of high-performing blogs. After we implemented a number of Derek’s suggestions, we saw immediate results: increased RSS and email subscribers, more pageviews, etc. As soon as Kim Woodbridge is back from vacation, I’m going to have her help me redistribute the sidebar elements here by page -another one of Derek’s tips. I guess tweaking the redesign of PassingThru will be an ongoing thing.

What role does/did research and educational information play in your knowledge base regarding your blog, if you have one? If you’re considering an online business, what kinds of resources have you encountered, or what would you like to see that would help you get up to speed? Any other thoughts on finding and using service resources or creating a Plan “B” business online?

Related articles

• What Our Move to Location Independence is Not (passingthru.com)