24: Een bureau bouwen tegen krassen - opbouwen. Scheuren. Leren. Ga vooruit.

In het geval dat je nieuw bent in deze vlezige kleine serie, documenteer ik alles (onbewerkt en echt) in de openheid terwijl ik probeer een sterk gericht sociaal klantenservicebureau op te zetten, verschillende banen werk, omgaan met angst en angst voor het onbekende.

Dag 24 was best een ritje. Ik neem de weekenden niet op in mijn "dagen updates" maar ik heb het hele weekend gewerkt. Mensen zullen me uitschelden om dat te doen, maar als ik eerlijk kan zijn, ben ik er echt dol op. Klinkt gek, ik weet het. Ook moet je, als je met meerdere dingen jongleert, nadenken over wat je de tijd kunt geven die je hebt.

Ik ben nogal aan het leren en ik wil het hier op Medium delen omdat ik denk dat het anderen kan helpen. Ik heb ook nog een paar dingen gedaan om dit agentschap / bedrijf vooruit te helpen en ik wil dat ook delen.

Ik heb eerder gemeld dat ik één betalende klant had en twee case-studies. Dat is enigszins veranderd. De betalende klant kan besluiten om iets anders te doen vanwege persoonlijke gezondheidsproblemen en dat is OK, want ik kan niet boos worden over een heel kleine tegenslag. Deze dingen zullen gebeuren.

The two pilot clients, however, have signed agreements. So that’s great.

I have done the following in the past few days:

• •Tightened up my service offerings and I’m focusing on 3 things only (more on that in a second)
• •Setup Teamwork project management so I keep organized with my tasks. Teamwork project management has a free version. I’d love to be using Basecamp but $99/month is a lot when you are starting out. Sorry Basecamp — I love you dearly but I’ll come back one day :(
• •Began using a CRM so I not only keep organized but also have a place to store any potential leads. I am using Zoho CRM. It’s cheap.
• •Made sure my processes were all updated and ready for editing as need be. I’m using Atlassian Confluence for that. It’s only $10.

What I did next was nothing short of awesome. Now…you are going to cringe because it will seem like “fluff" but I will stand by this decision 110%. The reason I did this was becasue I need to differentiate. I need to add value. I need to be different than the run of the mill “agency".

1. 1I setup social listening. It will listen to over 1 billion sources on the Internet for any mentions of the brand, business, etc. This in and of itself is nothing miraculous. What I’m doing with it, however, is key.
2. 2I finished my actionable insights product (this is the exciting part)

So now I have three hightly focused and intertwined “services" if you will:

1. 1Social Customer Service — this is doing consumer support via a clients’ social networks, chat, messaging.
2. 2Social Listening — So I know everything being said, mentioned, talked about, etc. about a brand/business.
3. 3Actionable Insights

Let me dive into #3. I created this all on my own. Basically, I capture everything we do into a database. So, if we engage for a client using social customer service, then we capture that engagement. If the brand is mentioned using listening, we capture that as well. All of this “data" goes into the database for each client.

The data is organized in such a way that we can see trends, sentiment, and finally we can offer suggestions for what the client can do in order to increase engagmenet, sales, and ultimately get in sync with their audience.

Once summarized, it gets pushed to a dashboard and the clients logs in and BOOM they have a summary of weekly top issues, complaints, suggestions, and best of all “what to do about it."

That is 95% built and done. I’m already using it. Just need to find someone to help push this to the dashboard in Wordpress. (I’ve posted up a job on UpWork for that).

Cost? Free. Other than the help pushing it to my dashboard which is also up and running.

So I’ve been busy. This last part is going to be amazing. When I get big, then I can hire someone to automate this entire process and make a real thing out of it but for now, I’m going to show people why all this stuff I’m doing is so valuable.

I can already hear it now. People are going to say, “Shane, damnit, focus on SALES and stop f*cking around with adding things."

It’s ok to have that opinion but guess what? I went out and got two pilot clients and these things I just added were based on converations with real businesses. Also, I needed to find some differentiators. So I did. It did not cost me anything but some extra time on the weekend and learning a few things.

My agency is going to be stellar because it has been shaped by feedback and a keen focus on one central area: the clients’ customer. Engagement and customer focus are becoming the new marketing and I’m going to crush it when it comes to adding that value.

24 days in (and some weekends) and I’m rolling along. I’d love some real paying clients and I will have them. My case studies are starting and I’m already finding things that are going to add huge value to these clients.

I have some battles to overcome: businesses that will want to keep their social customer service in-house, and the true value of what I provide. Additionally, I will be up against businesses that already have agencies they work with. So yes, there ARE battles. These are real and I’ll run into them. So will you when you get this deep into your journey.

How do we overcome such things? Do we give up? Do we look around and let our inner voice compeltely destroy us and hold us back? Because it will. Do we just keep fighting to win a battle that you have no idea of the outcome? And when you are doing this alone and constantly battling the fight with anxiety and depression and such, do you feel less than human and unworthy?

These are things business leaders won’t tell you. These are things entrepreneurs won’t admit. They won’t discuss this in school either. The gritty underbelly of being human kinda sucks when you are expected to show the world how successful you are or how you “made it".

I think that a lot of good progress is being made. Pilot clients are awesome and the feedback is good but they aren’t paying so there is the fact that I need to see some sort of revenue very very soon. I spoke with a global business yesterday who offers Business Process Outsourcing (they are a $1.5 billion dollar a year business) and they also offer social customer care. They have a full-time staff doing it around the clock. So…..obviously there is something here.

Rewire Digital Stats

Feeling: optimistic, pressured, and ready

Costs: $1, 600

Clients: Not sure — it could be 1 but that might change

Pilots: 2

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 302,119+ people.

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