Recently, we took a #staycation here on the Island in Port St. Mary, a chance to just get away from what we’re up to and recharge our batteries. It was a needed break and set the scene for some great times of reflection.
I’ve always loved the fishing town of Port St. Mary. It was where my Father was brought up. It’s where my ancestors come from. And it’s such, such a cool little and very old town, but truthfully, the wifi sucks, but you can’t always have it all right?
Debbie and I just loved walking the local streets. This is a very old town. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of years old, and I was coming alive by the rocks & the buildings, remembering town moments and stories from my childhood. Memories of when I was a nipper with my Dad, delivering oil to different hotels and guest houses, which are now just residential apartments. My Aunt was telling me a story about my great grandfather who rented and ran a hotel here back in the day. He wanted to install electricity! But the lady who owned that hotel said “No, it doesn’t need it, gas lamps are fine.” So at 60 years old, he built his own hotel. It became known at the Point Hotel. My Great Aunt took over the running of it and it passed down through the family. My Aunt Barbara Uncle Derek ran it until they sold it and it’s luxury apartments today. It really got me thinking…
The world has evolved, yet so so many people are marketing like it’s pre-COVID. They want to be post-COVID of course, but they just don’t know how to or want to change their marketing strategies.
As you watch the video above, you’ll see another hotel, this was a stunner. I remember delivering oil here too. It’s now been closed for 30 years. So sad really. But how many businesses are closed right now? It’s just shocking. And yet at the same time, there’s still a beautiful world all around. Port St. Mary has one of the nicest beaches on the Island, yet it’s empty, nobody seems to knows about it. Well, they do actually, but, they just don’t come, because it’s too far to drive to Port St. Mary! I kid you not! If you live in Douglas (The Island’s capital) then this is a major journey. We’ve got change this mindset. It’s not just on the Island, it’s across the world. We have to change the way we see things and act accordingly.
And yet my first love is still for small businesses.
I’ve talked about this over the last few weeks, seeing small businesses fail just breaks my heart. There are so many things I know I could be doing to counter this. Debbie and I have built a great team and truthfully, we’re permanently at capacity, we have more work coming our way than we know how to do with it sometimes. So we get to pick the clients that we want to work with. We make it happen! But man, the team can be almost redlining a lot at a time and that’s not healthy. So we just decided to hire three new people. We’ve already got to our new IT Manager. We need an additional copywriter, and we need yet another WordPress designer. These two positions are still in the very early stages of advertising. Why are we doing this? Because there’s more people that need our help. And we can’t burn out our team.
People + Purpose + Passion = Profit
I know how to make money, it’s not that hard, but you know, life isn’t always just about money. Life is about taking time think. Life is about purpose, living your passion, making a difference, and, if you make profit – awesome! It doesn’t have to be huge profit. It could be just enough to make you comfortable, and, if that’s okay for you, each to their own. I’m okay with that. You don’t need this 24 hour a day hustle or side hustle. You know, our daughter has a second job. That’s okay. She’s trying to make ends meet in Calgary, where she lives, and we’re so proud of her for doing it right.
So I’m making a stand today in the city of my forefathers that we need to do more as a company, I need to do more and increasing our team means to be able to do more good in the world.
Maybe you do, maybe you don’t even know what our culture is. We’re very much a family-first business, Debbie and I run it equally together. Quite often, it’s often me in the forefront, but in the background, it’s Debbie. A lot of the decisions are made because of what we’ve discussed and her intuition has always been the right!
What came out of this week, is a new way of blending life and business. If we add up all of our services, we’ve got Social Media expertise, we’ve built amazing websites that convert, we totally get SEO. Then add to this, we’ve got a business mindset strategy hat is second to none. I’ve been in business and as an entrepreneur for the best part of 40 years and I know what works. I know how people work and how you can get people to want to happily buy from you. I also know how not to do things. I’m really refining our work-life blend model.
If you’re looking for some help, and we can help, you know that we will.
The world is starting to open up, I think June is going to be a watershed here in the UK. Whether they can really open up or whether the variants are really going to knock everybody back again, who knows? But the vaccine is getting out there. I think a lot of people are becoming part of the herd -mmunity success story. It’s going to be good. This Fall is when it really all happens. I really do believe that as we go into the third quarter of 2021 life, as we know it will be gone. Life, as we should know it, as we do things properly, will begin and we’ll be ready.
I pray that you stay safe and well, and that your family and your employees and your customers equally. We’re tooling up and we’ll be ready. Will you? Perhaps it’s time to talk.
- Are you ready? Changing your mindset for post-Covid success! - June 11, 2021
- Quick Quarantine Update - May 20, 2021
- Finding Balance and Support - May 20, 2021
