My Wealth Creation Journey

Day 551- Friday 30th October 2009

6:30am start this morning. Before the troops get in writing a couple of Blog posts to get myself up to dat on the wealth creation blog....

Then onto trying to resolve an ordering problem for Deliver Net. They have a home which is ordering and it the order is going onto the wrong account. I'm going to have to do some investigation on this... I get a couple of emails from Ruth as well from Deliver Net, they have a new group who will be ordering online and they need this to be setup... a Job for Otis on Monday. Also the Guardian group who Order online have now decided to change the way they manage their budgets... Ruth will make the amendments to the forms and then I will need to reset the budgets... this is a job for the weekend.

Select Hire part of Laing O'Rourke email over the product codes for the Bathroom products that are in the warehouse now and those that will come in over the coming months. This is for the One-Hyde-Park project. There are 5 different companies involved in the bathroom exercise and getting everyone to agree has been a nightmare. By default we are now having to resort to control and product management rather than the previously preferred method which was aimed at what was best for delivery to site.

Otis will sort this out as well on Monday morning, we basically have 60 new codes, we need to book in the stock which has now all been counted and then hide all the existing codes which are no longer required. So this will take a good few hours to sort out and even then I may have to en-mass some changes directly on the database....

Chatting with my new friend and JV partner we have now arranged to meet on Saturday in Northampton... this should be really interesting... looking forward to this!

Finished sorting out the VAT, now just need to assemble the details into a spreadsheet for the accounts team and send over to them. Will prepare all the Scans and Paperwork which goes with this spreadsheet tomorrow.

Payday for the troops today, so make all the necessary bank transfers...

Table Tennis tonight... played aweful... but at least got hot and moved around a bit, which was fine. Back at base nice long online chat and then to bed... fairly late again !!

Day 550- Thursday 29th October 2009

6:30am start today... struggle getting out of the sack after a late one last night putting together the presentation for Westminster University. Had some great online networking moments as well last night, bit of fun regarding the MG group... Great new contact as well, there are some great JV opportunities here in more ways that one! Lets just say online training here we come!

I'm thinking about how to get my VAT return posted off and to Customs & Excise in time... but a little bird tells me that I should do it online... on further investigation this is just about adding an additional service to my existing Government Portal login... 30 minutes later I'm good to go !!

I'm having quite a long conversation with Tim at Deliver Net today re the analysis of the online forms ordering results. There is a discrepency between the values I am passing and those that Ruth is generating. Having produced the output and sent the spreadsheet to Tim I've concluded that what I think is the difference is between what is ordered and what has been invoiced. This is later confirmed by Tim as the case... end of another mystery!

Today there are two events going on which are pretty important. Westminster University is showing the system to their Governing / Controlling body to gain approval and recommendation for roll-out across the different Access centres around the UK. Mark Hall is speaking with his friend today about the implementation and consulting franchise business model.

At the end of the day, reports back from Paul Dilley at Westminster that the meeting went well and the people liked the system, we now have to set up three more users, one of whom is from the governing body and wants to have a look around the system.

Mark Hall had a good meeting with his friend both of whom had been thinking of working in the software industry along these lines before, so it quite synergistic for them. They like the presentation that I knocked out last night and the next step is to evaluate the product with relation to his current endeavour, a lettings management business. This is also a Franchise business and consequently could lead to further sales. These guys have a vested interest in making this happen and work... so watch this space!

Table tennis coaching at Barnet today with Norman who has had four months off with a fractured wrist... he is almost 80 years old so he will be pretty rusty today... as predicted ... not good!!

Watching Question time, not a bad show... then afterwards online chatting... another late one but great fun and very enjoyable...

Day 549 - Wednesday 28th October 2009

6am start this morning... I have a VAT return to sort out amongst a whole stack of other tasks as well... Lets get the list sorted out to start with...

Otis is off to a 4Networking meeting and as it is close to pay day of course he has no money at all... a case of too much month at the end of the money !! I transfer the expenses to his account so that at least he can get to the meetings and pay for the breakfast.

Next job, Westminster University (my longest serving customer from 2001) is expanding the use of our software to include other centres around the UK. This has involved adding approximately 50 new users. During this process of expansion and subsequent testing a couple of bugs have emerged... I fix these and send over an email to Paul that they are now sorted. They will be showing the system to their regulatory body on Thursday this week, so it is important that everything is squeaky clean by then.

I spoke with Carl French yesterday another guy that has surfaced from Otis's 4Networking meetings. I want to set up another meeting with him to review the Franchise model that I want to put in place. He specialises in setting up Franchises as well as having a number of business interests that might indeed be able to use the i-Tr@der business platform themselves. Nothing better than learning the system whilst deploying a real live project at the same time.

I've got the statement out for Deliver Net, add their payments from earlier in the month so the account is up to date and then send it out via the system... so easy to send a statmement with i-Tr@der plus I know when they have looked at this too... great for Debt control!

A couple of Blog posts written and posted to Livia to get up on my Wealth Creation Blog and then start on the VAT return. The postmen will be off on strike again this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so I'm guessing that I will have to use a courier to ensure that my VAT return gets to the VAT office by Saturday. Pulling all the paperwork together is a bit of a nightmare this month and just reinforces the fact that I must deploy a better process for handling incoming Invoices from Suppliers. Must work on this during November with my sister (KD Accounting) who's starting to handle more of the Bookkeeping function in an outsourcing capacity.

Good progress with the VAT return this will be completed first thing tomorrow. Table tennis tonight in the Watford & District Table Tennis league. We are playing at the new Watford Boys Grammar School Academy again and the opponents are the same people we played in the cup last week and beat 6-0, still got a blog post to write up about this from last week will have to get this sorted out tomorrow... we win the match 6-2, which should help to consolidate our position at the top of the table.

Back at base some interesting conversations regarding the Money Gym which sparked off this Blog of course, and set me on the course of finding out what and where I needed to go to get up to speed on Internet Marketing which was my main requirement. Now I am a positive person, but there appears to me in the IM (internet marketing) field a frenzy of getting people to pay for courses, materials, various things like the new MoneyGym Boardroom which are innovative ways to get people to spend money and yet are unlikely to receive the benefits that they meet their expectations... it's all about selling to a rabid frenzied IM audience that want to learn and get caught up in the maelstrom of the whole thing. Very few of these participants actually end up making any money... and yet to complain seems very negative and un-British. I'm contemplating setting up a similar activity as a breeding ground to provide a group of people with real business advice and guidance and also making it a select but non profit organisation directly. This will encourage, nurture, share and help to create without putting additional financial burden on people.

This group will meet on a once a month basis and I will formulate the idea and start to invite particpants to take part. It seems to be an opportunity to give back, to help good ideas come to be and enable people to really start making their ideas come to fruition... already got a couple of people interested in the concept. I feel some other JV ideas coming to be...

Last thing before I'm off to bed... putting that presentation together for Mark Hall for his meeting tomorrow. A quick how sorting out a powerpoint presentation for him and then off to bed at 1am... alarm will go off at 6am tomorrow, but it might take a crane to get me out of the bed...

Day 548 - Tuesday 27th October 2009

7:30am start today... first thing is to check the email from Tim Lockett of Deliver Net about these reports for Four Seasons and after a bit of additional manipulation finally email them over to him, 8 of them in total. No doubt we will need to speak again on these as he looks to understand exactly what they contain.

Meanwhile I press on with finishing off the amendments to the service level agreement we have with the Watford Boys Grammar School and the Urban Progress TTPro Table Tennis academy. This done I email it over to the school, copy in Urfi although being as it is half term I guess nothing much will happen this week.

I promised Chris at Select Hire (a division of Laing O'Rourke) that I would get the quotation for the amendments to the i-Tr@der system (they call this LMS - Logistics Management System) either last night or first thing this morning. I put this together within 30 minutes and email it over to him. Sending this out through the i-Tr@der system is great because it means as soon as he opens the link I will know that it has been read! Within 30 minutes I see that it has been opened... check out the email below !

	From:	CGoldsmith@selectplanthire.com	Date Sent: :Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:04:38
	To:	chris.ogle@ipsx.co.uk
	Cc:
	Subject:	Document/File attachment Viewed

Q091027.wpd @ Oct, 27 2009  11:04:38 AM

Company Reg. No. : 4522119 Registered Name : Internet Power Systems Ltd
Registered Address : c/o Whittingdales, Chancery House, 53-64 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1QU

This means that when Chris opened the email, I automatically get an email telling me that he has done so, plus a link to the email is written away into the contact management emails received, recorded permanently for anyone to view later on.

As suspected a fair few conversations with Tim from Deliver Net as he gets to grips with the reports that I have sent across to him. Mark Hall from Access Business called today. He is a chap that Otis has met at 4Networking and I'm hoping will be working on the building of the Consulting and Implementation Franchise network with me. He has a meeting on Thursday and is quizzing me about what he will need to say to his potential partner in his first group. I'm thinking I might need to put this into some kind of document for him to make sure that he conveys the information in the way that makes most sense. I'm going to have a think about that.

Speaking with Revolution Telecoms today, we are looking to put in place the invoicing mechanism for them over the coming week or so. I've asked for some information to be emailed over to us to enable me to complete this exercise.

Morris is over in the afternoon to get updated on everything that has been going on whilst he has been in Mexico for a month. Billbandit, i-Tr@der , Table Tennis Blogs, Urban Progress TTPro, it takes a while to get through everything, but he's now pretty much up to date. His holiday in Mexico was good, he was staying with some retired friends down there in a small town which is a kind of American / Canadian version of our ex-pat presence on the Costa Brava in Spain. A bit artificial but the climate is wonderful and it is very inexpensive to live. Morris reckons that a whole month there cost much less than 2 weeks in Scotland!

Table Tennis match tonight in the Chalfont league which we won 9-1, they could have fielded a very strong team, however no one was available and so we had a relatively easy night of it. Back at base something to eat and a quick bit of TV of Mr. Buffet the richest man in the world and how he has managed to amass a multi billion dollar business empire... very interesting indeed! Off to bed, 12:30am early start tomorrow.

Day 547 - Monday 26th October 2009

7:30am start today... was going to start work on the VAT return today, but the reporting for Deliver Net needs to be finished.

Morris my business partner is back from Mexico and we touch base briefly, he will be coming over tomorrow to get an update. Still no sign of the elusive Karen - Velvet, I'm waiting to get the final Insert card for the   BillBandit sorted out and I need the artwork to be able to do this. Hopefully she will resurface some time soon!

Preparing some invoices this afternoon, there are a number of things that have accumulated over the month and I now need to get them invoiced out...  I have all the information and as we are now moving towards the end of the month I need to get them out.

Yesterday I managed to install and test the Skype screen sharing facility. Tested it with Otis last night and it works pretty well, this will be ideal for showing people what to do and for one-on-one training. This afternoon I'm having a phone call with Suzanne who I met over the weekend about a training opportunity combining her skills of delivering training and her new business KISS - Keep it simple software training along with the need for downloadable videos and online training for our i-Tr@der business platform.

In the process I show Suzanne how I set up the sharing and then we go through some of the main elements of the  i-Tr@der business platform... contact management, emails, electronic invoicing, statements and the whole look and feel thing. Suzanne thinks that it can be delivered online in nice easy manageable bite size chunks to customers, making it easy to do and very affordable too! I'm start to put together some basic sales blurb detailing customer benefits and we can then work on this together to knock it into shape!

No Table Tennis tonight !! Got lots of things to do and I still haven't finished these reports on sales figures for Deliver Net. Working through till about 8:45pm before calling it a day!

Day 546 - Sunday 25th October 2009

Great night last night.... and a very good start to the day too!!! back at base and onto work circa 10:30am after a trip to the supermarket. Lucky the clocks went back an hour which was very well utilised I can tell you!!

Today I'm working on analysing the Sales statistics for Four Seasons Health Care, one of Deliver Net's customers. They have been using the Budgetting component of the online forms ordering system since September 1st  and we now have sufficient information to check performance against budgets and look at the consequences of the budget introduction.

The reporting is quite complex and as this is the first month we have done this, I am busy trying to work out how to get the information out of the databases in the format that we require. That's the problem with this kind of data extraction, once you have the data you then need to cross check to make sure that what is coming out is what you expected and it accurate. This bit can take longer than the report itself...

Finished off a couple of blog posts as well today and in the afternoon a visit to my mothers. Haven't seen her for a few weeks... was playing Table Tennis the whole weekend of the 10th/11th then the next weekend in Hungary and now only this weekend am I able to visit. All is well over there although now when I'm leaving a little after 5pm it is almost dark... the return of the dark nights!

Back at base... cooking Mushroom risotto tonight, 5 types of mushroom with green beans cooked in garlic and black pepper... ! Dinner was pretty good and plenty left over for tomorrow night all washed down with a couple of beers and a glass or three of wine...

Day 545 - Saturday 24th October 2009

A bit of a lie in this morning up and about at 8:30am - ish. Got quite a lot to do this weekend and I'm out off to Susannes book launch and Birthday party later on tonight! Check the link to get hold of her new book!]

So first tasks, get a little issue out of the way for Westminster University, test and then send an email to confirm what has been done. Next task is to complete my analysis of the Nick Griffin and Question Time show on Thursday this week. That now out of the way I email some people the link to gauge their reaction.

Rendering some Table Tennis videos from wednesdays cup match on another PC here, tomorrow I want to get that post up and also some backlog videos, just I need to work out who was playing in the matches.

As I remember all the things I have to do my list is extending not contracting... It's already quite late on in the afternoon when I start to think about sorting myself out for tonights party. First get what I'm going to wear sorted, then wrap up some presents and things, then shower, shave and all that stuff before nipping to pick up a card for Susanne.

I've arrived at the Travel lodge at around 8:10pm a quick visit to the toilet and then a short walk to the venue. I've never been to the Blue Mountain Gold Range, but it doesn't look very far on Google maps... Takes about 15 minutes to walk there, the last bit is a very dark 400m lane... still I arrive safe and sound!

The party is great fun, there are about 6 or so people from the Money Gym there, people whom I have met on the Internet via Facebook butnot actually met in person. The party is great fun, a live band, good conversation which inevitably leads to work, opportunities and potential collaborations. One of the people there tonight Suzanne (with a 'Z') I emailed in the afternoon about work and she said that she was getting ready to go to Susannes Book launch and birthday bash. I didn't reply but knew she would be there so it would be a bit of fun t catch her by surprise!

The party end comes very quickly indeed and a relatively quick departure as I manage to scounge a lift from Graham Wendes back to the hotel !! We've got an extra hour in bed tonight, so that is good news for the lay-in tomorrow!

Day 544 - Friday 23rd October 2009

The alarm goes off this morning at 6:30am and to be honest I can't remember what day it is... I must have been in a very deep sleep but it takes a full 5 seconds to calculate what day we're on as I slowly come round!

I've got a meeting at 9:30am in Gerrards Cross and there are some emails and things that I need to check on customer systems before I head off at 8:30-ish. Livia arrives just before 8am, a little early as the traffic is lighter today... the kids have started half term already and so my trip to Gerrards Cross should also take considerably less time too!

Trying to work out how to pay my Barclaycard... the postal workers are on strike again, yesterday and today, so don't really want to post anything. I can pay online, super... I'll do that when I get back later on today. I had a call from Otis at 7:40am to say he would be a little late as his tyre had gone down due to a slow puncture (getting it fixed at the weekend)... at 8:20am the phone goes and it's his mum, have I heard from Otis... well yes much earlier when he rang to say he'd been late... turns out he has been in an accident and written his car completely off! He is ok which is the main thing, however the car is in a mess and he is shaken up. Today he will have to get another car sorted and then do all the insurance, tax, etc. etc.. nothing difficult just a complete nause.

My meeting with Mark Hall goes well... Mark will potentially work with us on building a network of i-Tr@der Consultants / Implementation specialists who will be responsible for delivering all services into the user base. The participants will be organised into Teams (5 people) all of whome will have a special discipline and so effectively provide small businesses with a Virtual Board of Non-Exec Directors, which brings into place another idea I had previously... coincidentally.

Back at base, loads to do, sort out Livia's payroll details, conversations with my colleague Ian, chat with Claire Raikes regarding the BillBandit project. I've also got to get a comprehensive list of things together that I need to do over this coming weekend. Workload is building up again!

I need to pay off Barclaycard, sort out some payments to Urban Progress TTPro, one of these is a transfer out from PayPal. Table Tennis tonight, practice down at Watford Grammar School, first Friday we have done this and first practice for almost two weeks as well now that the season has started.

Heard from Otis that he now has a replacement car and that everything has been organised, so he should be at work on Monday as usual. Tonight a paster bake with Pilchards, that makes a change, tastes pretty good though washed down with some beer and a glass of wine !

Day 543 - Thursday 22nd October 2009

5:30am start this morning... some blog posts to write this morning, I need to plan my route to Burton-On-Trent and also book a flight to revisit the Video guys in Hungary in the middle of November.

This is all sorted by 7:30am, then shower, change and off to get diesel, fruit and sandwiches for todays trip. I'm right on schedule and on the road by 8:10am. A good trip and I'm in Burton-On-Trent by 10:10am which is a pretty good result.

The meeting goes on for almost 3 hours. The meeting is to discuss Deliver Net's intention to extend their marketplace by using an online portal. The portal is mainly to reach smaller customers not targeted in the traditional way by Deliver Net. Our role in the meeting is to understand the portal and then to find out how we are to provide the information to populate it and to then to transact with it. 

The meeting goes well the people involved know their system inside out and once we understand the objective and the user experience that is trying to be created, we get onto the meat of how we could roll out the solution. I've identified four points of interface, non of them technically that difficult but the devil is always in the detail!

The drive back is pretty long and I stop for 20 minutes to rest before arriving back at base around 4:40pm. On the way back I am reviewing the BillBandit insert card with Karen Birch (Velvet designs). Visually I describe how I want it to look while she has the file open... Once I'm back she sends over her interpretation of my request... we are almost there just a few tweaks now and I think we are good to go.

I'm pretty tired and pleased that I do not have Table Tennis tonight... I have to go to the shops as well to pick up a few bits and pieces, chips with some salad tonight. Looking forward to question time tonight, which has the British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin on the show. The show is very interesting indeed and very many issues are raised that I can feel a blog post coming on...

Tired but not wishing to lose the thought process, my take on the Nick Griffin - BNP on Question Time. I'm not a supporter of the BNP but what I do think is that they have strong views about issues other party are unwilling to bring to the table because of their Political Correctness (PC). There are sensitive issues here and a party that understands the concerns of the people but delivers an intelligent, honest, careful, fair, just and deft touch to many of these difficult areas will in my opinion win the hearts and minds of the people... does a political party such as this exist? right now it is hard to see it... 

Tired and off to bed now a little after midnight having crafted much of my Nick Griffin Blog Post!!

Day 542 - Wednesday 21st October 2009

6:30am start this morning... I'm downloading the main databases from Deliver Net today as I want to do some checking on a problem account for Diane up there. While I'm downloading this I'm upgrading bits and pieces for Westminster University. They want to go live with the system today and mostly all the changes have now been implemented.

There is a report left to do which I almost finish before 10am, when my guest Hugh from TruckCom arrives to see me. He is working with Deliver Net on introducing PDA's into their driver cabs to send back and store Proof of Deliveries (POS's) automatically onto the system. From our end we will need to pass Deliver Details out by driver and then receive updates when the Delivery details have been confirmed.

The meeting goes well Tim is a nice guy, TruckCom are a small clever software company a bit like us and there is a lot of synergy between the two companies, I think we can work well together.

Tim is off and away very happy with the meeting... he wishes all his meetings were as fruitful, people who can actually make things happen rather than just talk about them... shows how small businesses can be much more agile than larger ones when coming up with innovative new ideas to help businesses.

Back on with Westminster and putting the finishing touches in now... Paul from Westminster called during our meeting so I drop him an email with updates and progress as each new component is implemented.

The changes to our packaging in part due to comments from my new Marketing assistant Livia are scheduled to be discussed with Karen this afternoon but that didn't happen... and I get all the details with Payroll sorted with my sister to get those progressed before she goes away on Friday.

Good news there though... my sister has already picked up two bits of new business as a result of her decision to get involved with i-Tr@der , I did tell her this would happen and it is nice that this is coming to pass. Two of my new clients of the i-Tr@der system will use my sister for their bookkeeping and payroll requirements... her knowledge of i-Tr@der although not complete will be expedited because of this new development... good new all round and proof of the way the market will go in my eyes in the future.

Table Tennis again this evening... Cup game in the Watford & District Table Tennis League, this is our first game down at our new venue at Watford Boys Grammar School. I meet up with Urfi there and we will definately need to have a meeting this week as there are some issues I'd like to resolve with how he is resourcing this really important project... So this meeting is scheduled for Friday. The match we won 6-0 and so are through to the next round of the cup !

A kebab tonight as there is nothing inthe fridge to eat... then some News, social networking, planning for tomorrow and off to bed around 12:30am... early start tomorrow 5:30am.