I come from an offline background in sales, sales training and consulting. But I've pretty much always been involved in business offline at some point. I've helped turn companies from start up enterprises into multi-million dollar organisations. But I don't want to waste any time on this call without sharing a learning experience with the listeners, so I'm going to focus on something with your permission, Terry, from my background - but as a learning point for people, if I may, rather than just ramble on about my background. My first taste of business was 21 years ago at the age of 17. I started a business importing oil paintings from Hong Kong and Taiwan. These were brilliant. The two types of paintings I concentrated on were Old Master Copies, and Portraits painted from photographs. And I learned so many lessons from that first business that I've never forgotten to this day. Let' me explain quickly how. Firstly, I tried selling the old master copies. These were faithful reproductions of the Mona Lisa, the Sunflowers, any famous artist of yesteryear... if they painted it... you could get a painting reproduced. Of course it wasn't the original... but it was an original, painted exclusively for you in oils on canvas. The trouble was... I knew nothing about art and famous artists, and when it came to it... neither did most other people. So finding someone who truly appreciated what I was selling was really difficult. And I was door-knocking back in the day... I didn't have a shop, or place to display... I had one example of a painting... and a catalogue of the different paintings that I had to offer. And when I came across someone who knew art... they quickly realised I didn't have a clue about art or what I was selling myself... so the credibility and the sale went straight down the tube. So I decided to concentrate on the other side... portraits from photographs. So in a nutshell I'd send the photograph off, and 3 weeks later, I'd receive the painting, which was a true likeness to the photograph with the canvas rolled up in a tube and hand delivered by the postman. I knew that what wow'd people was when they saw their own portrait painted in oils on canvas, so I wanted to target two markets primarily. Weddings and Students graduating from university. But I had some major obstacles... 1) I couldn't drive and didn't have a car. 2) I had very little in terms of money. 3) You know some 17 year olds look older than their age... I was a 17 year old that wouldn't have taken myself seriously if I’d seen myself now, at the age I was back then. I mean I looked really young, and it's hard to get people to part with their cash if they don't take you seriously - I looked like a school kid who should be doing a paper-route, not like someone who should be asking people for $200 That was lesson no. 1 - no credibility = no sales So I knew that I had to build the credibility factor, so I asked my bank manager if I could have a photograph taken with him, and bring in a local reporter to take that photograph and write a story in the local newspaper about me and my oil paintings business. So that's what I did, and when the story appeared I took a cutting of it from the paper... so that I could show people... that look this really is me, this is my business and that they could trust me that this was all legit and above board, and I wasn't just asking them for their money and a photograph and promising them something in return 3 weeks down the line. Anyway, to cut a long story short, armed with just my newspaper clipping and bundles of energy, drive and enthusiasm. I ended up getting signed contracts with 3 universities... to offer the portraits from photographs to their graduates after graduation day - But here is the biggest mistake I made. All the literature I had prepared was targeting the students, and mailed out to the students after graduation. And do you know where it all went? In the bin. Why? Students didn't want to buy portraits of themselves... they'd rather spend that money on drinking beer and partying... The people I should have been targeting were the parents of the students. I had the wrong people opening the right message, targeted at the wrong audience. And that was my first and biggest lesson in business. A cock up on a grand scale with no second chances. And as far as business and making money are concerned, do you know what has changed in those 21 years, Terry, from the story I've just told you? Nothing... You need to know your market and you need to build your credibility. And that doesn't mean you have to be an established expert that everyone recognises, although undoubtedly that is what you should be working towards... it simply means that your website shouldn't look like it's been thrown together by a 10 year old on a free hosting account. If you don't treat yourself and your business seriously, you won't get any sales. And when it comes to getting traffic? You could have the best product in the world, but unless you know exactly who the cash paying customers are for your product or service, and target your message to them...you won't make any sales, regardless of how many people you throw your message out to. So that was my first introduction to the world of business, and over the 21 years that followed, I still made many mistakes, but learned from each one as I went along and became better at recognising mistakes, and patterns and scenarios before they presented themselves. And I took those learnings and started helping others... a mistake is a mistake... it doesn't matter what business you are in, which industry you are in...or what product or service you are selling. And a proven strategy is a proven strategy, despite which business you are in, which industry you are in or what product or service you are selling. So to sum up, from that start and over the next 21 years that followed until now, I've been taking away those mistakes and identifying the proven strategies in everything I do.

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