Today is Black Friday and I’m going to be something of a contrarian.  There is no discount mentioned in this blog or available from me at this time.

If that ends your interest then no problem – just get on with enjoying your day.

Ok – so I was talking to a small business owner this week – she was one of a group of businesses I was surveying on behalf of my client.

One of the questions was whether or not she had a website.  She answered “yes” and told me that it was an “Etsy” website.  I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right so I asked her to repeat herself.  “Etsy” she repeated – and spelt it.  She said it’s like Amazon or eBay – a type of online marketplace.

I said I’d never heard of it.  “You’ve never heard of Etsy?” she exclaimed incredulously.  And I can’t be accused of being over-sensitive but I thought she said it in a way that indicated what she thought of my commercial/business knowledge.  It just made me wonder how the rest of the conversation might go.

One of the other questions was to ask her what her turnover had been for her previous financial year.  She said a tiny number.  And I mean really tiny.  And she added that all that revenue had gone back into the business to pay for supplies.  Overall she was making a slight loss and wasn’t paying herself anything.  So she was actually making a sizeable loss.

We discussed briefly what she might look at trying to remedy the situation.  One idea I floated was to consider moving away from Etsy.  “Oh no” came the response.  And she added that she’d “put way too much time and effort to get my store up there – two years”!

But all that time and effort is irrelevant.  It’s water under the bridge.  It’s in the past – what accountants call a “sunk cost”.  The money already spent on something should have no role in deciding whether or not to continue with it.  Yes, it may have been your baby.  Yes, it may be emotionally tempting to throw good money after bad.  But it makes zero financial sense to do so.

If you’ve read this far after being told there was no discount great.  But I do have something price-related to tell you.

My advisory Accountability by Email (AbE) service, which is described and which you can buy here at €40 + tax monthly, is too cheap.  Two advisors have told me so.

“You’re giving people confidential 1:1 attention for upwards of an hour of your time?  And you’re thinking about their business at other times?”  When I answered “yes” they weren’t impressed.

So the price is going up, but not yet.  I’m not sure how much yet – it’ll be at least 25% which would bring it to €50 monthly + tax.

For that money what do you get?

You get a business-confidante, a sort of bite-sized external chairperson reducing your mental isolation, giving you honest second opinions, helping you clarify what you want, and getting you out of your echo chamber.

So if you want to grab that price, which will be guaranteed to remain the same for you for as long as you remain on-board, go here.

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