Hi, I’m Neil and welcome to Watch Me Quit (WMQ). I set myself the goal of leaving my job by the end of 2016 by growing my side business to £5,000 per month in revenue. Long story short, I didn't hit my goal but nevertheless, had to quit my job, which I wrote about here.
I didn’t take the plunge blindly and I wouldn’t recommend it. I set up my business at the beginning of 2015. Had a few paying clients and knew that I needed to start holding myself accountable to take it to the next level. I was making too many excuses, like being tired after work, wanting to go out, watching TV or reading about other businesses aimlessly. My passion is business, so I enjoy reading stories about people who started amazing businesses. I like seeing where they started and how they got there. This usually then gets me thinking about how I could get into that industry...and that’s another four hours wasted. Sound like you?
The Watch Me Quit clock is my accountability clock. It’s my way of lighting a fire under my ass and growing my business.
Growing my business is not going to be easy. In fact, creating this blog means that I have less time to make sales. But I'm still creating WMQ for the following reasons:
I'm going to be 10 times more productive.
Providing updates will force me to take a step back and look at what I've done, change my plans accordingly and think about my business strategically.
The blog may actually help generate interest in my business.
I love the idea of teaching and motivating other people who are in a similar boat.
I hope to potentially create a WMQ community whose members support and guide each other.
I do, however, need to manage my time wisely, so here’s how I'll be spending it:
Monthly blog update about how I’m doing to get to my goal (possibly more updates if I have time)
Sharing my journey with other relevant sites to grow the WMQ audience
Respond to comments and emails
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Is Watch Me Quit For You?
If you've dreamt about starting your own freelance, coaching or online business and quitting your job, you may want to stick around.
Perhaps you've already established a business and want to learn how you can get more clients, automate it and grow it even further.
Maybe you just love everything to do with business and want to be inspired and follow along. Even better, if you share the journey with me. 🙂
Watch Me Quit isn't for you if you're expecting to read success stories and quick wins only. I believe creating something special takes time, strategy and perseverance. That's why I expect to make mistakes and hopefully you can learn from these as well as the successes.
To give you a flavour of the type content I plan on sharing here:
How you can start a freelance (service) or coaching based business
How you can get paying clients for your business
How to keep organised in your business and create systems
How to prepare financially for quitting your 9 to 5 job
The psychology and mindset required to grow your own business
How to grow your business to £100k per year
About Me
I'm based in London, UK and have been married for over 5 years. My wife is very supportive of my plans and has always been the first person I go to for advice or just to brainstorm an idea. When I mentioned leaving my job back in 2016 (and just before Watch Me Quit went live), she said, "So you know all those times we go out to eat, buy clothes and go on holidays without thinking about it? You know we can't do that anymore." I see this as a small sacrifice for a big dream. 🙂 She was right though; we started to budget and I created my own Financial Quit Plan.
I used to work as a Project Manager within Finance and made over 6 figures a year. My salary made my decision to leave my 9 to 5 even harder. My parents thought I was bonkers at the time. What they didn’t understand is that when you've thought about having your own business for over 10 years, money is just one aspect. What I look forward to most is the freedom to choose what I do and when. Plus, in business, there are no limits to how much you can earn. 🙂
My Business
In a nutshell, I help online entrepreneurs and small businesses get found and grow their businesses online by doing it for them or coaching them. You can view my blog here.
I also run a digital marketing agency in London where I help larger businesses drive more bookings, enquiries and sales online using digital marketing strategies.
I use a mix of search engine optimisation (SEO), content marketing, social media and paid advertising to create effective online marketing campaigns. It’s important to look at the full end-to-end picture, from attracting the right visitors, converting them into a customer to keeping them smiling post-sale, and referring their friends and family.
That’s enough about what I do. Now I’ll explain how I got here.
My Background
In 2009 I launched my first website. It took 4 months and £20,000 to create a fancy site and by the time it went live, the only visitors we had were friends and family. We missed the first step in creating a successful business online — marketing, which should start before a site has even been created. One sale and 3 months later, it was a confirmed failure.
Since then I have been committed to creating a successful business online and I started my journey of absorbing and practicing everything to do with internet marketing. I still remember my first sale through affiliate marketing. I made $49 by selling a speaking course using a one-page website. My marketing plan was pretty simple: give advice to people looking for it in forums. The sale felt wonderful, but the entire process felt scammy, so I stopped it. Over the years I’ve launched affiliate marketing websites, an iPhone app, a blog and a luxury gift store. Out of this, I still run one site, which makes 4 figures a year.
In early 2014 I decided to create a blog that taught online marketing to business owners. After speaking to businesses directly, though, I realised they didn’t have the time or the interest to do it for themselves. Therefore, I pivoted and decided to offer online marketing services to larger sized businesses. I also introduced coaching for solo businesses that didn’t have a monthly budget or just wanted some quick advice.
I’ve worked with a number of clients since 2015, and will be my progress with you every month.
One Goal
All decisions I make on my own websites or client sites are based on one goal that I set at the start. This keeps us focused on everything we do.
The one goal for my marketing business is to reach £100,000 revenue by December 2017.
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It’s Time To Make This Happen
I’m excited to reach my goal and share everything with you along the way.
My commitment to Watch Me Quit readers includes:
Honesty - you won’t see any inflated numbers or POSITIVE ONLY messages of “hey guys, I’ve just earnt £10,000 by doing X”. I expect to be failing regularly and I hope you can learn from these failures as well as the successes. If you’re chasing quick tactics to make money online, this site is not for you. If you want to establish a long-term business and are prepared to work for it, you’re in the right place.
Openness - to help you learn from my mistakes, it’s important that I be as open as possible about my journey. As they say, the devil is in the details. I’ll go deep and break down exactly what I’ve done. I will not, however, share any sensitive data about my business or clients. This site is about being accountable and relating the story of growing a business, not necessarily providing information about the specific business itself. I’m happy to share revenue figures because that is what I’m using as my metric to quit.
Service - I aim to put my readers first. If it’s not in your interest, it will not be published on this site. This is really where I need your help; I’d love to know what you think and if I can do anything better. I’ll read and try to respond to every message.
Ok, now that the seriousness is out of the way, let’s get on with growing our businesses, shall we?
If Watch Me Quit has inspired you in any way, feel free to set your own accountability goal. It doesn’t need to be about quitting; it can be anything like making more sales or increasing your following. All I ask is that you make it as specific as possible, which usually means including a number so you have something tangible at which to aim.
If you’re interested in growing your own business and following my journey, sign up here.