Greg’s Update:

Fails:

  • I still didn’t finish the Application Funnel campaign as I delegated it to a team member and they just finished the build out of the IS side on late Friday and I finished some new scheduling/application pages over the weekend which I’m using Wufoo for when it comes to the actual application part.

Results:

  • System.ly Revenue –
    • MR: $26,106
  • I Put finishing touches on Webinar Funnel Blueprint campaign and push it live today cuz it was too late on Friday to be pushing anything live by the time I got done.
  • Reviewed the photos with my photographer from my photoshoot and have received the final file which I’ll be using some of these images for fb ads.
  • I’ve mapped out the 2017 quarterly rocks/key initiatives for the year and will be reviewing those with the team at our annual meeting in a few weeks
  • I’ve reviewed the profit first model and need to comb through a lot of my software subscriptions because that and education are my biggest expenses minus team. I need to determine if there is any waste there.
  • I mapped out the entire funnel for my AC beta client and we reviewed that together. I got approval to proceed so I’ll be knocking that out this week before thanksgiving.
  • I had a good first EO Learning Day on Thursday where we covered strategy and planning for 2017 which was a good followup to Dan’s event the other week and there are some exercises I’ll be taking my team through during our team meeting
  • We pulled the trigger on a project management tool and we’ll be using ActiveCollab
  • I had a good call with Chris Smith from The Campfire Effect who is also based in Phoenix (actually works out of the same building as Sixth Division) and I may be attending one of his workshops in February. He’s all about helping businesses extract their story and turn that into a branded process in which you leverage in your offering to your clients.
  • I started a facebook group for system.ly where I’ll be sharing a lot of content and doing some FB lives, one of which will be today where I’m just going to do a Q&A but we already have 140 members.
  • I finished reading a book called Boundaries
  • G-Men victory which puts us at 7-3 going into Cleveland so hopefully we’ll be 8-3 before we have a couple of big divisional games
  • Our garage is pretty much framed out and about 3 weeks from being complete.

Plans:

  • Build out beta AC campaign by Wednesday
  • I’m going to be doing some facebook lives (today) and possibly wednesday totally freestyle just to start experimenting
  • Finish my review of my financials
  • Finalize agenda for our annual team meeting
  • Finalize if I’m going to do a black friday special of our course.
  • Write up webinar workshop agenda to add to sales page so I can send email next week with new dates
  • I have a bunch of “networking” calls this week to see if there are ways I can be adding value to the networks of people I know and if they know of people that I may be able to help.
  • I have an interview for Webinar Mastery Summit
  • 4 Sales calls
  • Thanksgiving day and the team is not working on Black friday but i’ll be getting some work done so looking forward to a focused day since a lot of the team won’t be around.

Justin’s Update:

Fails:

  • Finalize office situation. I’d like to either have a lease signed for the space.
    • Shortly after we went live with last week’s episode I was told I’d be getting the lease agreement the following week. So I’m still waiting on that.

Results:

  • LeadFuze software revenue is $30.8k MRR.
    • Still the same.  It was short lived with the product update not having fixed reply detection issues after all. However, this trip we just focused hard core on it and actually get it working properly. So NOW I think we’re golden. So far, no issues… so we’ll see how things progress. Of course, holiday week coming up so not expecting a whole lot of movement here, but we’ll see.
  • Spent the week in Istanbul to focus solely on product issues and the direction. This was SOOO valuable as we got to iron out current product problems, met our lead engineer in person and strengthen that relationship, and share goals for the product going forward.
  • It was a difficult time trying to adjust time zone wise. In fact, I never really did. That said, we broke up the days with some naps to account for it which made our working sessions pretty productive.
  • Met up with a podcast listener who took us out to dinner to one of his favorite spots. That was a great experience… Khalid, I know you’re listening – thanks again for a great evening.  
  • After that even, the three of us went out for some drinks to celebrate the reply detection issue being fixed. Damian and I were still wide awake at like 1am and so we decided to go out to a different area of town to experience it. Long story short, we had our drinks laced with something. It was crazy… was losing function of my limbs, felt like just dropping right on the ground and passing out. I was able to get out there and get back to the room, but the next day for both Damian and I was rough. Lots of throwing up, light headedness, etc. Not a fun time, but outside of that… it was a good trip. They say nothing good ever happens after midnight, and so we probably should have stuck around the hotel if nothing else. It’s a story at least.
  • During our way back Damian and I had a few hours layover in New York and we got to spend time finalizing core values and company perks as well, which was a great use of time.
  • On all the flights, I listened to 3 and a half audio books so it was time well spent.
    • The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Really good insights into handling difficult situations. You just don’t commonly hear about a lot of the issues talked about in the book.
    • Hatching Twitter: Unbelievable story. So much drama you can’t even make it up. The investors come out looking HORRIBLE with the backstabbing and secret agendas. Friends become enemies all trying to take over the CEO role. Just a sad story. The first CEO, Jack Dorsey couldn’t get the app fixed and it kept crashing. This was going on for over a year and Ev Williams felt he could run it better and investors wanted Jack out. Ev was financing the whole thing so he took over, but couldn’t get revenue up. Investors wanted him replaced and to ultimately get Jack back. It’s wild, but what it had me thinking about was our situation. Having had product issues for awhile and revenue stagnant, it was a great chance to evaluate my own performance. I came away from this feeling like now that most of our product issues are behind us, we need to be hyper focused on revenue growth going forward. Especially when you’re sending investor email updates, and you’re having a lack of confidence yourself because of the known product issues… just not a good feeling. I’m finally starting to believe in the product again and I want to make sure future sales people and our team going forward is in a better position to believe in what we’re doing. So this book had a pretty powerful take away for me and the drama of it all just made it a fascinating read/listen.
    • Predictable Prospecting: A solid book on prospecting and cold email. Closest I’ve read to what I believe is the way it should be done.
    • Mindset: Currently listening to this which talks about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. I love learning about people’s behavior and this has been pretty interesting so far.

Plans:

  • Organize all my thoughts from the trip.
  • Get Github organized for next steps.
  • Catch up on emails and get back to inbox zero.
  • Finalize office situation. I’d like to either have a lease signed for the space. With the holiday week, I’m not actually expecting I’ll get the paperwork but we’ll see.
  • Enjoy Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday, going to load up on some mashed potatoes and watch some football. I’m actually going to play some football that morning. It’s been about five years since I’ve played so we’ll see how that goes.

Resources Mentioned:

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