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Join Up Dots - Online Business Success Made Easy


Welcome To The #1 Global Hit Podcast Join Up Dots

Jun 30, 2021

Company of one and other wisdom is on the cards today in the Join Up Dots business coaching podcast.

Lets start with some major words to get into your head.

When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be.

But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling.

Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams.

This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK David Ralph

Yes. Hello. Good morning.

Good morning everyone across the world.

How are you welcome to Join Up Dots.

Yes, the global hit show, the business motivation conversation, inspirational show, that is literally driving you guys to success.

Its driving you guys forward. And for a long while it was driving me into an early grave.

But I'm things things are a lot more on an even keel.

 

This Week In Join UP Dots

This week's been a bit of a bit of an unusual week, because I've been away.

I often say that I'm very good at disconnecting. But it's very hard to 100% disconnect.

It's very hard not to just go "Oh, I'll go on the internet, I just do this. And I just do that."

This week, I've been trying my hardest to really be free from everything, not knowing what's going on in the news, not knowing what the football result are.

And Im about 80% achieving my aim.

I needed to do that because I started to feel myself getting a little bit frazzled by the amount of work I was taking on.

That's kind of what I'm going to be talking about today.

Because when you start your online business, when you start any business, more often than not, you go for the dream.

I suppose the dream isn't what the dream ends up being.

Because first of all, you start with a tiny little dream thinking "Oh, as long as I can get x y Z, then ill be alright".

It's a kind of scraping through kind of dream.

Which is perfectly acceptable, because you haven't moved through to the next stage where you you've had the proof.

As my wife always says, "When I see it, I'll believe it. "

 

When I See It I'll Believe It

And so that's what happens in Join Up Dots and everyone that I coach  have to have that moment of realisation that this can work.

Now, when they're starting to build it, you set a ceiling on what you need.

More often than not, I call it my keeping the lights on figure.

That point when you can get to a certain point where you go, "Yeah, we're okay now. I'm actually earning the income. That means that the bills are paid, but I've got free time and everything is good."

But of course, of course, things get a little bit greedy.

It's very hard not to go out and just squeeze in another client, or just do another little bit of this and a little bit of that.

I found myself falling into that trap where I was actually starting to think, "Oh my god, I need to do this and then I need to do that. "

In many ways, it wasn't becoming fun.

It wasn't when I was connecting with people and thinking, "I'm really looking forward to this"

It was like what I need to get this done because I got another person straight afterwards.

So I've tried to clear the decks, I've gone back to basics with Join Up Dots where I'm doing the bare minimum.

But what I need to do to actually sort of make a living. And if you can make a living, that's great.

If you make a greedy living then more often than not, it comes with certain sort of restraints.

 

Matt Devella And Minimalism 

You know, along that line, when I did dip into the internet, I saw this video now there's a guy that I've mentioned on the show called Matt D'avella.

He's on YouTube, and he does a lot of lifestyle design videos, and they're very good.

They're very professional.

But as with most things, once you've seen a few of them, you start to think, "okay, you're kind of repeating yourself."

It must be very hard as it is with Join Up Dots .

I'm sure after 1500 shows, you guys are going "God, he's talking about the same thing. He's constantly telling us Yes, you can go out and do it."

And I'm gonna keep on doing that. I will keep on doing that until the last breath is in my body.

And I'm laying there.

And I say," Did it work? Did it work? "

And we open the window.and if I hear crying and mourning across the globe, and I'm hoping Yes, it's worked and join up dots delivered what I was hoping for.

Anyway back to Matt Devella, as these are really good videos.

And one of the ones I watched this week was a minimalist approach to business.

Now I like minimalism, although I am more into essentialism, which I will actually talk about later.

But minimalism is how you reduce everything in your life to that which you need.

You don't need to be out having to work to support them.

Now, it's a long standing principle, really, so many people are going to work just to pay for that car loan, which they don't actually get a chance to use because they're going to work to pay for it.

They have a big mortgage too, and they're supporting a lifestyle that isn't conducive to having life experiences.

 

Life Is About Having Your Breath Taking Away

I saw a sign in the pub the other day.

It said something like, "Life isn't about the amount of breaths you take. It's about the amount of moments that your breath is taken away."

That's brilliant, isn't it, where it's all about having those experiences and those moments when you say "Oh, my God, that is wonderful."

I think most of us don't get many of those because we're so busy just living a life and sort of moving on.

Now, Matt, the minimalist guy. He done that.

H has stripped his life down. He's made it very basic.

He was talking to a guy called Paul Jarvis, who's got a book out which I jumped onto Amazon and bough. 

I bought his book "Company of One", which is saying, staying small is the next big thing for business.

The principle which is building minimalism into your business.

So not to think to yourself "Right? I want to have a million pound a month."

Instead saying "If I can get to my keep the lights on figure, and then double it. That's good enough. That's, that's fine."

So if I could get like two clients a month, and that gives me what I need, and then double, why go for five clients and 10 clients?

Why get staff and employees?

You keep it all stripped back.

Now one of the things he was talking about is how so many people people start paying for employees.

When you're better off is having people on contract that only get paid when you need them. So they're kind of non paid employees.

So if you're sort of struggling with your website design and your email marketing list, have somebody that is ready, and you've signed them off, and you know them and you trust them.

You can say, "Jane, Jane, I need you to do that today." And she does it.

When you pay her, it's not an employee, but it's a contracted worker to keep your business small, meaning that you can just focus in on what you're doing.

Well when I was watching that video i was thinking "Yeah, I think that's what I need to do."

Because I've taken on so many client, which is brilliant, me, my 30 day business coaching course, has been flying, and which is great.

But as I say you get a bit frazzled. And you think to yourself, "Actually, I can't do this. And I can't do that, because I've got this person to speak to"

 

Building Your Own Company Of One

So that's what I've been doing.

If you jump onto YouTube and look for that Company of One, why staying small, it's the next big thing in business by Paul Jarvis and Matt, they develop a very interesting conversation.

The other thing that I'm going to say is I want to read an email.

Now I won't give this guy's name, but I'm going to be speaking to him live tomorrow.

I just wanted you guys to hear somebody out there who's listening to the show.

I will tell you that his name's Scott, nothing else, nothing else. But I will tell you, he's named Scott. And I'm going to be speaking to him live tomorrow.

He's connected with me. And I'm gonna, I'm going to try to help him on his way.

He said me? I'm Scott. Good morning David massive fan of the show.

Thank you for the effort you put in, I know you're a busy guy.

So out of 12 months anyway, so I'll be brief. I'm totally into your way of thinking.

My goal is to create an online business, that I can operate from anywhere and spend more time doing what I want, when I want, who I want with, just don't tell the wife.

The issue is I'm totally lost as to what the business will be.

The more podcasts and videos I watch, the more lost I get.

I totally understand that. You can go into sort of analysis paralysis, as they say where every single person's got a point of view.

I always say to people find two or three people that you really believe in and ignore everybody else. Now, I still got the same two. But I look at all the time.

One of the guys is Pat Flynn from Smart Passive income. And the other is a guy called John Lee Dumas who runs Entrepreneur on Fire.

He's taken his podcast into seven figures.

It would be stupid for me not to at least go over every now and again and have a look at what he's doing and how he's structuring it.

Everybody else I ignore, got no interest in them. I just go for the two guys I believe in and I trust and you should do as well.

Now, Scott says, "The issue is I'm totally lost as to what that business will be. And the more podcasts and videos I watched the more Lost I get.

Digital marketing, affiliate marketing, FBA, God knows, I'm just getting stressed trying to figure out what way to go.

I'm open to anything, I just need to be shown the path and not told I'm going to be worth a million quid in a week's time.

Now that is one of the thing I loved about this email. And that's why I decided to connect with him. Because I hate these things where you see somebody next to their infinity pool.

It's not their bloody infinity pool. They've just gone on holiday and said to somebody else "Can I make a video and jump into the infinity pool?"

Or they walked past a jet while they're trying to get into EasyJet, and they taken a quick photograph of themselves.

So it looks like their lifestyle. I don't believe any of it. I really don't.

I think most of it is total rubbish out there. I'd much rather see somebody wearing, you know, a pair of jeans and a T shirt and saying, you know, I live my life.

I go and pick the kids up from school, I come home, I do three hours work. And I make a full time income.

To me that is far more doable, and far more believable than what these people are saying "Yes, if you follow me, you can be a millionaire in a week's time, total total rubbish. "

Scott also says "I don't need a Lamborghini, Chelsea and New York homes, I'd be happy knowing every month the bills are paid no matter where I am in the world".

And that is totally doable. It really is.

And there's three ways you've got to think about how to do this.

 

The Three Ways To Build A Company Of One

You've really got to stop thinking about affiliate marketing.

It's great, but it's small potatoes.

You've got to step more into the bigger part of the business.

If you've got something that you can do, and believe me, you will have something that you can do that somebody else wants, you can become that product and that service .

You then making more money.

Now what you then need to do is obviously separate yourself from the business by training somebody up to be able to do what you do so that you can then service two people.

You can scale it and it doesn't mean that you're trapped in the business. It's just you have to get the ball rolling.

Now there was a guy on the show the other day called Geoff Cook, who is the founder or Growlr, the Gay Bear app.

Yeah I bet Yogi's having a great old time in the woods.

The Gay Bear man, Geoff Cook was saying that at the beginning, he started a CV resume business in college.

He was doing all the work himself. 

He had to until he could find people that would help him. And then his issue was about how to make sure those people remain good.

Keeping the quality up. So there's certain issues at the beginning.

But the strategy really is if you can put yourself into the service, first of all, you're going to start making more money.

 

Why My Company Of One Was An Early Failure 

I think with Join Up Dots I screwed up on that.

I kind of thought that you could just make a podcast, be like a radio host and make a million pounds.

But of course that's not the case.

You've got to be more in your business than out of your business.

Now Scott also says "I'm a builder of 25 years working self employed and although massive potential in the industry, I fell out of love with it and the desire for the online business lifestyle you dangle" Yes, my dangling out, I dangle in front of him every week.

"I know that there's a shitload of work ahead of me. And that's something I don't have a problem with at all.

Please help or show me where to start maybe.

So I love that email. There's realism, there's understanding that it takes work.

There's understanding, that you aim to pay your bills.

There's understanding that yes you could be a millionaire but who wants to you know?

I used to want to be a millionaire. And now when somebody says to me, "David I'm going to Be a Millionaire Next year, I just go Yeah, go and go for it." #

Because making a million pounds online, does happen. But it's difficult, more difficult than making a replacement income from what you've got at the moment to where you want to be.

But you've got the free time, you've got the choices, you've got all that kind of stuff. That is totally doable. That is a company of one.

So I suppose in a summary of blending this podcast in with the company of one, why staying small is the next big thing for business, and Scott's honest realization of what it takes.

I think that I was on the wrong track recently, I think I've started to go for certain points of business.

Well, as I said, I'm aiming for a million listeners. Now I am I'm still aiming for a million listeners, because that's part of my overall strategy.

That doesn't mean that I've got to do any more work, I've just got to do the right things behind the show.

Totally doable, and will bring me a lot of rewards. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

But on the other side, I can have too many clients, which means that I am restricted from having a life and feeling frazzled.

Wanting to disconnect and hide out online. Can't do that, because that's not going to be good for me.

You got to think about that right at the very beginning.

You got to think about how much you're willing to put in.

But always having that ability to separate yourself, you know, don't trap yourself, paint yourself closer to the door, but then leave yourself on the other side of the door that you can close it up behind you and disappear.

I can literally turn off for months at a time my business will still operate I close it up.

I'd say I'm not going to take any more coaching clients any more mentoring clients and then I'll come back in August or September or whatever and then I will go again totally controllable.

That is the company of one, I am heading for.