BIO (Who is Shane Boreham)

Here's a brief overview of my experience in my business career and insights to my thinking which has resulted after many successes and many mistakes/failures (Or learning curves as I would prefer to call them)

I left School at 16 to serve an apprenticeship (Seems so long ago)

Started my first business at 24 years old sold this 18 months later.

Started from scratch and bought into existing business
I have started several businesses from scratch and bought into an existing business.

Spent hundred of thousands of dollars on advertising
From a marketing perspective, other than my 2 years in the corporate world (Which by the way I watched with amazement at the waste of tens of thousands of dollars in advertising) I have been in a position where I have had control of the advertising budget which has generally ranged from 20k to 50k per annum.

Developed proven marketing systems
I have developed marketing systems that helped me survive the hard times such as the 1997 down turn and found these systems worked even better in the good times.

Sold millions of dollars of product
I have personally sold millions of dollars of consumer products to end users, as well as selling millions of dollars of commercial products to business owners.

Have held middle and senior management positions
Have been employed in middle and senior management positions in various companies, including positions such as Branch Manager, Area Manager, Regional Manager and Company Manager

Turnovers of multi millions of dollars
Have managed divisions in companies that were privately owned with turnover ranges from a couple of million dollars to six or seven million dollars per annum. (10 to over 30 staff)

Spent two years in the corporate world
Was a manager in a large corporate owned business for 2 years, while I hated the corporate environment I stayed there longer than originally anticipated because I was being trained and had access to information about 50 other business units some performing well others not so well. I had a boss who could read profit and loss reports upside down while drinking coffee and fire off numerous question about them. It was here that my natural ability for numbers and analytical abilities along with the extensive training provided that I learnt a lot about reading financial information.

Dealt with people at all levels
I've had exposure to many different environments and dealt with people of all different levels. So Ican easily deal with you or any of your staff.

Tell it as I see it
I will tell it as it is and always work to find a way to make advertising work or find out as quickly as possible that it's not so it can be stopped. You might not always like what I say but it's always with the intention of making your business better.

Breakthrough
Sales and Marketing, I recently had several breakthroughs with the two area's I enjoy most in business. Marketing and Figures the analytical type work. The marriage of Online marketing and statistical information available from websites covers these both nicely. Check out my Google in 28 days package.

A broken leg lead me back to online marketing
It was after selling out of a business that I had and what was supposed to be a short break (3 months maximum) that ended up being 12 months mainly due to a broken leg and a few complications. With a broken leg and total boredom (I mean you can only watch the discovery channel for so long) I began making websites for something to do. During this time I learnt several things, firstly while I enjoyed making websites (it brought back distant memories of my early teen age years where I spent hours, sometime well into the early hours of the morning programming computers) it was not something I could do full time.

Its easy to get a website not so easy to get results from it
I also found (well actually re-discovered what I'd previously found when I'd had various websites made for businesses I'd been involved in). You put a website up and nothing happens, no one visits your site NO TRAFFIC. I then spent several months investigating, researching and then testing how to fix this problem.

Focus on getting more business
When the financial crisis came along - I knew then that it was now more important than ever to help small to medium businesses to focus on an area that many don't do well. It's been easy to get business for many years now in the so called boom times and we've become lazy (Me included).

Choose your market carefully
I've recently been involved in a market that was totally price driven, low margins, no room for any mistakes and quite frankly hard work. My previous experience meant I knew there are far easier ways to have a good business. A business where things like relationships and reoccuring business are far more important and easier to operate successfully even in a recession.

Marketing should be an investment not an expense
My philosophy with marketing has always been it must be seen as an investment and pay it's own way rather than just another expense that no one knows if it's even working. 

Online marketing still has huge opportunity
I firmly believe online marketing is still only at the beginning for most bricks and mortar type business especially local focused businesses and it's ability to measure all you do makes it a very good media to use.

Local business wanting local customers
So after a fine tuning a couple a options I have released several products aimed specifically for SME with a focus on local customers for local business.

Online marketing that works
From a marketing perspective I know this industry is filled with unfulfilled promises and an almost mysterious side of how online marketing actually works.

Guarantee my services
I knew I would have to put my money where my mouth is and have done this by offering a 100% money back guarantee on any service provided by Ezy Marketing. For more info look here.

Made lots of mistakes
Along the way I have had many successes and made many mistakes. I think it is often making the mistakes that teaches us the most.

More mistakes...

Bit off more than I could chew
After having a year off it was time to do something else and in hind sight I jumped from the frying pan straight into the fire (so to speak). I took on a management role in a division that was performing extremely poorly. A few months down the track I'd found that the most of the larger projects that had been won by previous staff were poorly priced. Many of the staff that had stayed were under performing and the market we were in was a market I'd previously encountered and had moved away from because it was not a market I want to be involved in for many reasons. Big Lesson - I should have acted faster as I knew what needed to be done.

Gone through a business closure
The business division above was closed. I then had the Job of making staff redundant (Two weeks before Christmas not the most pleasant of tasks) and then having to finish off all work on the books (with no staff which turned out to be a good thing). Interestingly enough the contracts I finished were won during my tenure there and all were completed on budget or better than expected. But I was reminded that this was not a market I wanted to be in long term.

Failed Business Partnership
While buying into an existing business was in many ways easier than starting from scratch. The business I bought into performed extremely well while I was there BUT along with the business came a partner and a partnership that didn't do so well. (That's a whole other story)