Tag Archives: communications

My Thoughts on Business After One Startup Year

Well, Velocity Digital is one today! I can’t believe it! I’ve worked with some amazing clients and partners over the past 12 months, and I have to thank each and every one of them! My quick thoughts on my first year in business and some tips:

  • I’ve learned more in one year that I have in the rest of my career combined
  • Pricing is hard, very, very hard
  • There are people out there that want you to fail
  • But the majority will be rooting for you
  • It is ok to make mistakes (I’ve not made many, but the key thing is being able to fix them)
  • Clients love a no-bulls*** approach and they should be prepared to be on the end of ‘spade is a spade’ approach. This works both ways!
  • Getting paid can be a drag, but professional invoices help!
  • You need to be prepared to shift your business functions in order to meet demand – Velocity is now quite different to my initial vision
  • If you expect praise, forget it, and never seek it
  • Always be ready to learn from your clients
  • Learn you client’s industry inside out, if you don’t you’ll struggle to offer the best solutions
  • Often the best projects are the ones you thought you’d get no satisfaction from
  • It isn’t all about satisfaction
  • It is the best choice I’ve made. The ability to do things your way without influence from above (not god!) is amazing

Just a slice of my thoughts! I had a party today, check out the wild, behind-the-scenes footage in the video below:

You can find out more about Velocity Digital here or read my latest social media, digital and content marketing posts here – Follow @mike_mcgrail

Advertisement

Leave a comment

Filed under Diary Entries, Velocity Digital

We Have Lift Off! Introducing Velocity Digital…

Hello! Well, here I am, finally in a position to launch my business…

Velocity Digital is my first step in to the world of entrepreneurship, it has been an amazing journey so far and I’ve really enjoyed charting it on this blog. Velocity Digital is a social media, digital and content marketing consultancy. I’ve been working in marketing and specifically the digital side of the field for many a year now, and in the past four years, social media and content marketing have become a massive part of what I do. Having my own business is something I’ve always wanted to do and to be launching my consultancy is the culmination of years of dreaming and planning. I cannot wait to get stuck-in and start making some serious magic happen for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

I intend to keep this diary going and will strive to update it as often as possible. That’s all for now. Bring it on.

Keep up to date with Velocity Digital on the Velocity Blog.

If you would like to discuss working with me, feel free to drop me an email.

Later!

4 Comments

Filed under Velocity Digital

Diary of a new entrepreneur – Week 6 (10.09.12)


Week 6 and the launch has stuttered a little…

This Service is Delayed…

Today was supposed to be the day that I revealed my business to the world. Unfortunately, there will be no such unveiling as there is still work to do on the site. We are trying to do something pretty nifty to do with responsiveness of the site to mobile devices etc and it is proving a little troublesome, however, it will not defeat my super-clever developer and all will be well! I expect that I will be able to fully launch at some point this week, if not early next.

It Has to be Perfect

The thought of ‘going live’ without the site being absolutely spot-on makes me throw up a little in my mouth. There is nothing worse than a false start, especially with such important ‘shop fronts’ as websites. Perfection can be a dangerous beast, as when do we know if it has actually been reached? When I searched Google for ‘the strive for perfection’, it returned an article with this quote from Sir Henry Royce:

“Strive for perfection in everything you do.
Take the best that exists and make it better.
When it does not exist. Design it.”

Sounds easy, right?

Continue reading

20 Comments

Filed under Diary Entries

Big Startup Question – How do You Charge for Ideas?


A lot of what I will do for clients is based around coming up with ideas – whether that be ideas for blog, video or image based content or thoughts on how they can make better use of their digital and social media platforms. As I wind my way towards launch, I’m asking myself how I can supply ideas and at the same time ensure I receive my reward (payment!) for those.

A scenario

This will be easier to explain if I spell it out in a scenario…

I am lucky enough to be contacted by a new retail brand, they have created a set of great kitchen utensils aimed at the serious home chef. Let’s call it The Super Awesome Kitchen Utensil Co. They want my help to come up with ideas for content across various formats that will target their market and inspire them to get involved with the brand and of course, the products. I’m excited at the prospect, as retail goods, especially lifestyle orientated ones are perfectly suited to the social and digital media space.

Continue reading

15 Comments

Filed under Startup

Banks are Missing A Startup Opportunity

Yesterday, I tackled a lot of the admin fundamentals of getting my business off the ground – things like VAT registration etc. One of said tasks was to find a bank that would be a nice match for my needs as a new business owner. I took my query to Twitter and perhaps a little optimistically expected one of the banks to respond. In fact, knowing social media and how financial service organisations are really struggling to get to grips with it, it was highly optimistic!

Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under Startup