How to Retire in 12 Months

The magic and the madness always seem to come hand in hand!

I came into last week with nervous anticipation; so many things were coming to a head that it promised to be a “it didn’t rain but poured” kind of week and well, it did not disappoint!

My business partner Melinda and a lovely writer Alysha had meticulously planned a networking meeting to launch our affiliate program and our products to a group of Melbourne business owners. The turn out was great and although the venue was a little loud for our liking, everyone seemed to get some value out of the event and it was a great start to the social life of Grassroots Internet Strategy. The following night we held the first of our free workshops, with 3 small business owners in my auntie’s house in Airport West (Melbourne). We eased into the session with some wine and the questions were still coming thick and fast when we had to leave 2 hours later.

All this came about with the idea to go “grassroots” with the business. A few months back, in conversation with one of my mentors, he pointed out that many of our potential customers may not spend much time on the internet, it took about a month for this info to sink in, and once it did we created the workshops.

The workshops are free, and will be held every few weeks in Melbourne and Sydney for any business owners looking to create their first website or improve the one that didn’t give them the results they were hoping for. We want to get to know people and be of value to them before they even start and so far I think we are on the right track! Nothing seals a relationship like helping people succeed and most people enjoy sharing their tips for success…

The day I arrived in Melbourne I got a message from a client forwarding me an article about this project written by Jade Dragon, which was really cool! It’s nice that people I don’t know are being so supportive, I guess that’s the bonus of doing something publicly!

As well as our complete product (Planning Your Website e-course) we now have two new products waiting for final editing (Content Marketing e-course and How to set up Twitter e-book), we co-wrote the Twitter book with another woman which was a great opportunity because we are currently time poor and Mel knew that she is a guru in the field.

This really starts to give us a more rounded offering and once the new products are ready we will look at product bundles… And yes, I realise how nerdy I am being excited about product bundles!

The funniest moment last week was checking the tracking in E-Junkie and seeing that we have 8 affiliates… we had no idea!! So a new focus is to look after them and see how we can help them to help us! Loving this whole win/win buzz, warm fuzzies all round!

And completely unrelated to this project… The craziest moment last week was wading with excited crowds through a torrent of storm water in Melbourne CBD, the hail, ice and pelted leaves covering the streets in a thick blanket with wafts of eucalyptus. After giving up on options for transport we popped into a movie theatre and escaped to Shutter Island for a couple of hours at which point the madness had subsided. I love Melbourne!