There's things that I regret...

Normally I give you all the best of the best Procurement content in this weekly roundup.

But I’m not being honest with you by doing that this week because I’ve mainly been thinking about my Creator Journey and starting my own business (while being laid up with tropical man flu it’s given me a lot of time to ponder).

This content is going to help you if you’re thinking of starting your own e-mail list either now or in the future OR if you’re in the creator/ solopreneur space.

1. I wish I’d worked with experts sooner.

Yes, sure you might think you are saving money by doing it all yourself. But wow, I could have saved so much more time if I’d worked with experts sooner.

In December I made the decision to sign up to Melissa Guller’s Course Builders here and it’s been an absolute game changer. I’m so glad I discovered Melissa through the noise that is social media.

She’s helped me deliver every part of my new online course Procurement Soft Skills Mastery and is an absolute genius.

P.s. enrolment for my founders round cohort closes Friday 3rd May and I’m limiting to just 20 slots. If you want to find out more, just hit reply to this e-mail with two words ‘I’m Interested’ and I’ll send you all the details.

Melissa also has opened enrolment for a new course Email Engines here for anyone looking to start building an e-mail list or looking to grow.

My lesson is this…to view more things as valuable investments rather than costs. 101 Procurement stuff really…

I could have saved so much time and learnt 10x faster by having this mindset years ago.

2. Choose your tech wisely

My love affair with Substack is over.

There, I said it.

Don’t get me wrong…it’s served me well but I’m not convinced it’s served you well.

There’s been some deliverability issues with not everyone receiving my e-mails. If you’re a paid subscriber here, they take a 10% cut of every prescription.

I want to be transparent here as I think that sucks…I think if you’re generous enough to be paying for my work (thank you so much legends) you expect all of that to be going to the author.

There’s also no segmentation available on substack so I can’t do much to ensure you only get the content you’ve asked for.

I want to deliver you a more tailored experience that gives you exactly the content you’ve asked for and provides you the best value.

In May I will be migrating this newsletter over to beehiiv.

Don’t worry…there’s nothing you need to do.

The entire migration will be done from my side…just know the reasons I’m doing this are because I want to customise a better experience for you and up the quality of my content.

If you’re not moving forwards, you’re moving backwards. I’m always looking to innovate and improve.

Lesson 2 - plan for the future when it comes to your tech platforms

3. I’ve wasted valuable time trying to serve everyone.

Almost everything I do on here is given away for free, everything I’ve learned I try to share.

All the cheat sheets I’ve created I give away to you my loyal subscriber.

This week I was reminded of the life changing book “The 4-hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss.

In it Tim includes a brilliant section called E is for Elimination. He talks of Pareto and his garden: 80/20 and Freedom from futility.

By the way, this really is a life changing book, consider buying it here and if you purchase via this link it supports me as it’s an affiliate link too. :-)

I want to serve you and give you the best value I can, but I’m going to be honest with you I’ve focused too much time and energy trying to make everyone happy, energy that takes me away from serving you.

In the book, Tim asks the question “which 20% of customers are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness”.

There’s been a guy this week who has been contacting me as he’s never been able to get hold of my cheat sheets for free. Let’s call him Colin from Yemen.

They’re here btw. You can choose to contribute the suggested £10 but I recognise not all of you can afford this so if you want to get them for £0 just add £0 on the checkout page and you can get them for free.

I’d e-mailed him twice to sort the issue but it seems Gumroad doesn’t work in his country. So…I then offered to download them all individually and send them to him direct.

But in the meantime he sent me a couple of terse e-mails with some insults and a damming message on one of my Linkedin posts questioning my integrity and claiming that nothing I gave away was actually free.

Here’s what I should have said instead of trying to help him:

“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having such problems downloading my FREE cheat sheets that I create in my spare time to help Procurement Pros the world over.

I’ve been taking your insults for a while now, and it’s unfortunate that is seems we won’t be able to do business anymore. I’d recommend you take a good look at where this unhappiness and anger is actually coming from.

In any case, I wish you well. If you would like to order my free stuff in the future, I’ll be happy to supply it, but only if you conduct yourself without profanity and unnecessary insults. All the best and have a nice day.”

Colin is no longer part of my e-mail list as I’d rather be spending my time helping and serving you. He’s also blocked form my LinkedIn.

You’re who I want to work with, not him.

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to hit me with a reply “I’m interested” if you want to find out more about the Procurement Soft Skills Mastery course.