How To Work Less and Earn More By Leveraging The Synergy Between People And Technology
Several years ago when I was managing BetterEdit, my proofreading company that I sold in 2007, I was knee deep learning from Rich Schefren, taking his Business Growth System course.
Rich launched that program on the back of his most successful report to date, the Internet Business Manifesto, which featured the now famous flow chart of what an Internet entrepreneur is supposed to do if he or she wants to succeed online. If you haven’t read the Manifesto, I strongly recommend you do so as soon as possible, it’s still one of the most crucial reports on Internet marketing as an entrepreneur ever written.
After reading the Manifesto it was clear I needed to make some changes, so I joined Rich’s coaching program and began going through it. The premise of what Rich teaches is the idea that no person can realistically ever get to the point where their business looks after them, rather than they look after their business, if you do everything by yourself. Rich took this idea a lot further than just outsourcing, and sees business as a machine that can be completely automated.
At that point in time BetterEdit was doing well and I did have Angela, my admin/customer service person looking after most of the day to day emailing for the business, which is the main workload to keep it going. This was great, but as a result of thinking so much about automation and studying Rich’s course, I was interested in possibly using technology to further systematize the operations and gain more leverage.
Using Software To Automate
BetterEdit has a very simple job flow process. A client submits a paper and makes payment, the admin person assigns the job and forwards the document to an editor. The editor completes the job and returns to the document to both the admin and the client. Various emails flow back and forth if there are problems, but generally that’s the basic process.
One of the key weaknesses of the system I had was no affiliate program. I saw huge potential if I could find a way to pay a commission out to websites that referred jobs to the business. Besides manually tracking things, which would be a nightmare, I just couldn’t do it.
The answer to the affiliate issue was to create some kind of software that would handle the job process, including payments, so we could automatically track affiliate referrals and credit commissions for jobs completed.
I had to be careful because between paying editors and admin, the margin on jobs wasn’t massive. This wasn’t like an information product where I could pay out 50% commissions, I’d have to be careful. This was another reason where I saw software as a help as it could reduce the amount of work admin did, meaning I could incentivize affiliates with a higher commission.
With a software system in place, including an affiliate program, I could get out there and recruit an army of websites to refer customers to my business. I liked this idea because by then I was getting pretty tired of heading out to campuses to put up posters to promote the service, although I was starting to outsource this job too (my mind was constantly thinking about how I could work less without reducing my income).
Realizing Your Concept Can Be Tough
It was clear that software could be the automation answer, so I scheduled a meeting with a local development firm and sat down with them to talk about my plan.
