Furlough Weekly - 🏹 Fatal

DO YOU HAVE PLANS ON MARCH 23-25?

You do now! The Festival of Marketing is THE event for ambitious marketers. Holding its first event in 2013 the festival has undergone changes in recent years due to the pandemic. Held online in 2020 and 2021, this year’s festival offers a return to in person learning, a hybridized format, or a virtual-only pass.

Attracting high level marketers from around the globe, the in person portion of this three day event will be held in London, UK. However, all pass holders will be able to watch the virtual sessions on demand for 30 days (not all content will be virtual). Notable speakers include marketing and branding specialists from Procter and Gamble, Reuters, Unilever, Aston Martin, and the BBC.

This year the content focuses around the word Transform with key topics including creativity and the creative mindset, digital transformation and acceleration, and macro marketing trends. You can expect talks on how marketing can transform brands, businesses, and the economy, and how brands have transformed themselves over time to meet new challenges and remain current in a culture where people’s attention spans are only getting shorter.

Find out more at https://www.festivalofmarketing.com/

IN THIS WEEK'S EDITION:

• Fatal financial mistakes service providers make and how to avoid them.
• The future of Furlough.
• But can we make it sexy?
• Is there more?
• Last week's best bits.

FATAL FINANCIAL MISTAKES SERVICE PROVIDERS MAKE AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

Ever heard the phrase "work smarter not harder?" Well it rings true.

Many of us have embarked on our freelance / contractor journeys so you could spend time doing more of what you love.

The reality is every decision you make has consequences. And they can be both good and bad simultaneously. You now get to do more of what you love, but on the flip side you have more responsibilities over the financial workings of what you do.

If you slip up on the finance side this could potentially destroy everything you've worked for up to this moment.

Here's the thing: We want to make everyone in the Furlough community as successful with as little friction as possible. So we've put together this list of finance mistakes and how to avoid them:

1. Not separating personal and business accounts.

Even if you just have some projects on the side, separating these bank accounts means less confusion for your end of year account. It's so much easier to see and differentiate potential write offs too!

2. Not setting aside money for taxes.

If you are a contractor, it's likely your taxes aren't deducted every month automatically. This is why it's essential to put money aside for when those self assessment forms come around. Sure, no one likes seeing money disappear from their account due to tax, but it's vital that you avoid undersaving.

The last thing you want to have to do is take money out of your personal savings or crypto investments...

3. Not having a safety net.

Things happen. Your building could flood, your whale client could leave, the insurance bill you'd forgotten about could come in...

It's recommended that you have 3-6 months of personal living expenses saved "just incase." If you're an impulsive spender you might want to create a seperate savings account just for this.

4. Ignoring cash flow.

Seeing a wave of expenses (personal and business) can be daunting. Especially if they all come at once. Even if you had a bumper month profit wise, the butterflies in your stomach still exist.

Here's the thing, your issue isn't necessarily that your not making enough money. It could well be that you just aren't controlling your cash flow efficiently.

This could be solved with a simple Google Sheet measuring your projected cash flow.

A great tip to get the most out of this: Don't just list your payments when you received them. Also calculate the time between submitting your work and getting paid. You'll probably start seeing some patterns there.

THE FUTURE OF FURLOUGH

Planning for the future can be hard.

Because in the early stages of every organization, your initial plan usually pivots with the company’s growth.

And Furlough is growing at lightspeed.

That’s why in last week's Mastermind Session with our founder Joe Casanova, we took the time to break down the future of Furlough with our 4 phase plan.

*Hint: We’re almost at phase 2*

Are you ready for it?

Phase 1 is all about building the foundations.

Making sure our website is up to date & accurately reflecting what we’ve been building

Making sure our 60+ event schedule is planned out 4 weeks in advance (this gives us time to build hype + make sure each event is valuable & impactful)

Making sure our community is growing on a consistent basis (currently growing at 200+ members a week)

Phase 2 is all about setting the standard for success.

By building out micro-agencies within Furlough (we’re giving reputable members in the community a seat at the table) we’re calling this The Phi Collective

The Phi Collective will be made up of small + efficient teams that provide digital marketing services for projects that come across our pipeline (from Web 3.0 to Email Marketing, Social Media, & Advertising, etc.)

The Phi Collective will be breaking the boundaries of what the current agency model can do

Phase 3 is all about entering uncharted territory.

By making sure the service providers + clients have a place to conduct transactions through Furlough’s very own Marketplac3 (think Upwork but in Web 3.0)

By transitioning from a Web 2.0 Company to a Web 3.0 Organization (Launching our DAO)

Furlough’s DAO will own all of Furlough’s Web 3.0 assets (including our incubator + academy)

Phase 4 is all about changing the narrative.

By releasing the PHI currency (our very own Web 3.0 token that is used to transact amongst Web 3.0 assets)

By airdropping PHI tokens to members of the PHI DAO (rewarding members of the organization with voting rights to assets owned by the treasury)

By bringing back the power to the hard-working people that are a part of this organization

With all that being said…

Was that a lot to take in?

Good.

Because this our 5-year plan.

Each phase needs to happen before the next and there’s only so much future-proofing we can do ourselves.

But it all comes back to the members of this community.

Building the Furlough Ecosystem has presented many challenges & obstacles but it’s our community that makes it all worth it.

That being said, we’re super excited for you to come to check out this week’s Mastermind Session (hosted by our Founder, Joe Casanova) on Wednesday @ 2 pm!

BUT CAN WE MAKE IT SEXY?

Imagine if you could find revenue data for ANY company you search?

You could see how big or small they’ve grown in the past 12 months and leverage that data against their competitors.

If you’re a service provider or an agency owner…

Your sales (teams/guys/girls) would become unstoppable.

The good news is that you can do all of the above.

During last week’s Startup Booster, we sat down with Mickael, the founder of ReviewBolt.

ReviewBolt gives its users access to over 2m+ active companies' data on demand.

This is a super powerful tool for businesses in the B2B space.

But with that being said there are a few things we had to address.

FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE:

They’re looking for a technical co-founder to help move their business in the right direction

They need to double down on the things that make them different from their competitors (like SimilarWeb, Zoominfo, etc.)

They need to adjust their pricing for their lifetime plan to be more competitive (especially with all the costs they will incur down the road)

FROM A MARKETING PERSPECTIVE:

They need to nail down their ideal customer personas (the product isn’t targeted to any single group of people)

They need their website to be optimized for conversions while adding value through more features to new customers

They need to start converting site visitors into customers (currently sitting around 85k visits/month)

In the words of Mickael, “Our website is like an injured athlete that won't play the next game, we need to bring them to be 100% fit again”...

Not only is this mindset such a refreshing way to analyze your own startup…

But it also shows the determination of the founder.

This is why we constantly preach GROWTH THROUGH COLLABORATION.

An experienced founder can do some amazing things on their own…

But with this type of growth mindset, you can build something unforgettable.

Tune in this week as we’re going to be sitting down with Olwi.xyz (a market research tool for Reddit users).

Join us in the #Furlounge this Tuesday @ 2 pm for some high-level marketing insights!

If you’re a founder looking to get your Startup Boosted, then send a message to one of the Community Managers in the Furlough discord to join the waitlist (SPOTS ARE LIMITED).

IS THERE MORE?

In a perfect world,

A business that is doing over $15 million a year in revenue has all its bases covered.

Their entire funnel for acquiring customers,

For retaining them,

AND for closing them is firing on all cylinders.

But if you don’t live under a rock,

You would know that we don’t live in a perfect world and we can always be better.

This was the reality last week when we did our Brand Audit session for Diva Boutique Online.

Diva Boutique Online is a women's clothing brand that is doing north of $15 million a year in revenue.

*Yes, you read that correctly.*

Unlike some of the other brands that we’ve audited in the past, DBO is clearly doing something right to be generating multiple 8-figures/year.

This is the custom-tailored omnichannel approach that would take this company from $15 million/year to $30 million/year over the next 24 months.

FROM A HIGH-LEVEL OVERVIEW:

Site: Has a lack of upsell features + could improve load speed for mobile users

SEO: Optimize for keywords in titles & URLs

FB Ads: Setup retargeting on video views + Add to Cart sessions (Huge audiences that are being underutilized)

Google Ads: Setup smart shopping campaigns (their competitors are currently targeting their brand name for cheap clicks)

Email Marketing: Setup specific core + advanced flows as well as develop a content strategy to pivot from the current promotional strategy

As marketers, it’s extremely important to stay at the top of your game.

That’s why we pride ourselves on the quality of our work within Furlough.

The results keep getting better, the brands keep thriving, and the sessions keep growing.

Come check out this week’s Brand Audit session featuring Petit Moi (a timeless fashion brand that did $1.8m in revenue last year).

Join us in the #Furlounge this Thursday @ 2 pm to listen in on some high-value insights!

If you're a brand looking to get your 2022 action plan, then send a message to one of the community managers in the Furlough discord to join the waitlist (Spots are LIMITED).

ROUND UP

Get ready to experience this weeks best bits from our community:

COPYWRITING: What’s the writing process for market research?

MINDSET: Get up otherwise your comfort zone will destroy you.

QUESTIONS: How do you turn LinkedIn into Twitter?

OPPORTUNITIES: Looking for content writers.