I was too experienced and too expensive to get back into an IT career at that time – so what next?

Some major lifestyle changes were ahead, even possibly the loss of our house and maybe relocation to a less costly area to live. We are in the South East of England, which has one of the most expensive costs of living in the country.

So Lynne started to look for work again, and started private teaching part time.

We had to slash our living costs, so out went any unnecessary expenses like take-aways, eating out, entertainment and much more – that’s a whole story in itself.

I started to offer IT and Telecoms Consultancy, since this was a continuation of my former abilities.

We invested a large amount on a Microsoft Certified Professional course so I could bring my technical skills up to date.

But – how to get clients?

I’d always been interested in the Internet, was a Google user, and had published some web pages on our Corporate Intranet, which I enjoyed doing.

So I realised I had to make a website of my own, and figured out how to get a domain name and build a rudimentary website on it.

Then as we all do, I waited. And kept on waiting. Nothing happened. What’s going on?

I tried a different approach. I bought a listing of 1,400 or so local companies with an appropriate profile for my pitch -part-time on-site IT support.

It worked – just barely. I got one client from over 1,000 prospects. One. Conversion rate = 0.1 %. Not very good. But the course began to pay for itself.

We had to diversify. I did what every marketer has to – research.

Find a market, and reach it with something they need, something different to the others out there.

And on a shoe-string budget.

The big thing in demand around here, for a local business, is something that saves time for professional people who are both out at work all day long.

I know, because that’s where we’d been before.

I started a Domestic Cleaning service. We’d used these (and sacked one) before and knew all the requirements to satisfy your clients, which was actually difficult to find.

So we were able to position ourselves just as our clients would need – reliable, consciencious, flexible, customer-driven.

The marketing was some simple fliers printed up in Publisher, cut up small and delivered to our neighbourhood by hand.

But we didn’t pay for anything we didn’t have to. In fact, we ensured we got paid to do our own distribution.

We delivered telephone directories wherever we could and put our fliers in too!

In the fine weather, it was actually very enjoyable and we saw more of our local area than we ever would have otherwise.

And we got clients. Soon, with Lynne’s teaching, my cleaning, and some IT suport work, we were safe from losing the house and relocating.

I also took on some business development work for an old college friend. Then Lynne got a full time teaching job again, and I could turn my attention to developing a different sort of business, online.

So, where does Internet Marketing and Google AdWords come into all this?

Read the next part:

"How to Work from Home – Genuinely"

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