Welcome!
Hello and thanks for visiting! This blog is written by me (a qualified, high-end copywriter, editor & proofreader with 20 years experience) and others for you.
It tracks our companies, clients, colleagues and partners as we try to make an honest buck without killing the planet or going mad.
It’s a frank, fair dinkum and evolving story. Success, failure, mediocrity and discovery feature as they occur, with no punches pulled.
This blog will:
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Tell you what we’ve learned – the easy way and the hard way!
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Remind you that you’re not alone.
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Flag new tools and learning to make life easier.
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Save you from pitfalls.
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Answer your questions.
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Listen to your feedback.
I’m a writer, but no hero. I’ve mown lawns, driven cabs, managed a human resources department, published stories globally, done a Masters and designed and sold t-shirts.
I’ve had five staff, no staff, oodles of work and nothing. I toiled in public and private retail and manufacturing organisations until giving it all away to build my own business.
In short, I’m into my third decade of becoming an overnight success and I’m keen to tell my tales.
I greatly look forward to hearing yours!
With best regards and many thanks for reading!
Paul.
J
Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, www.thefeistyempire.com
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Hi everyone and welcome to Small Business Owner!
An FYI if you want to leave a comment – the first time you comment, it will be sent to the administrator for approval – so you won’t see it straight away.
Once your first comment is approved, all your future comments (submitted using the same email address) will appear immediately.
Don’t be shy – we’re all very nice and we’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback.
I must declare that I’ve worked with Paul in the past, and find him to be a novel, entertaining and intelligent communicator. So I’m very much looking forward to this new myBRC initiative. I have a nascent small business selling cartoons … every little bit of Paul’s wisdom will surely help. Thanks!
Hi Paul, hopefuly we are one of the first to congratulate you on your overnight success. We too have been looking forward to it for some time. However we have been very lucky to have known you over all these years and we wish you all the best ion your business adventure. Love to you Aunty Stella and Derek
My heartfelt thanks to you and Stella, Derek! You certainly did get in early and I greatly appreciate your support. If you’re keen to promote your business, don’t forget to paste your URL in the Website Box when you leave your reply!
Hi is that better? Derek
Spot on, Derek. I’d hate anyone to miss your fine establishment!
Hey Cousin
Congratulations.
Best wishes for your ongoing success.
You are fantastic.
Hi there, Monique! I didn’t expect this blog to trigger a gathering of the clans, but I’m very touched by your response. Thank you!
Dear Paul,
Before commenting on your new venture I wish to query the use of the word GILD in your Welcome.
Is it meant to be serious or jocular? If serious. I feel it might be a misnomer, because the roof was not gold coloured. If jocular, I would grant you poetic licence. What say you?
Love, D.
Dear Dad, as my roofing iron is all but diaphanous, I used ‘gild’ to conjure an image of paper-thin gold leaf. The renovation was serious, but the device was jocular. And there was certainly no gold left at the end! I’m keen for your licence; I hope I pass! Love, P.
Hi Paul,
I am a new small business owner,a small HR consultancy providing range of HR tools, templates and services. Not sure this is the best time to start up, but I am grateful for all tips and generally useful resources as I wade through mountains of compliance issues at start up. Looking forward to your news Catherine
Nice to meet you Catherine! If you can survive now, you’ll thrive when the Great Wheel turns anew. Please feel free to suggest discussion topics. If I don’t have the answers, someone in here will.
Hi Paul,
I have always thought that overnight success can just as quickly become overnight failure without the right planning, vision and skills.
With three decades to build your empire I’m sure you possess the key elements to this market space, have no doubt learnt many valuable lessons and as a small business exponentially expanding our client base, in the very rapidly growing online world, we can only benefit from the experiences others have already had and leverage them to our advantage.
I have syndicated your RSS feed and look forward to your future blogs!
Thank you for your wise (and kind!) words, Andrew. I hope you become a regular contributor; your IT expertise would add much to this forum.
Paul
As a friend of Banjar i have watched you grow over the last 5 years. While you call yourself a ‘copywriter’ we know full well you are somebody who has the unique skill of:
’saying more with less’
you have helped me and many of my customers save money, say more with less and become effective with communication
Well done
Mike Boyle
Thank you for your fabulous comment, Mike! I’m humbled that you feel that way and honoured that you saw fit to say so. You were the first person to put me in contact with Seth Godin’s work. As these pages will show, this has had a profoundly positive effect on my business and my life.
Hey Paul, greetings from Minneapolis, Minnesota. We’re the Land of 10,000 Lakes . . . and 10,000,000 varieties of mosquitoes. The latter proves especially annoying when you realize that some of them are the size of sparrows. Seeing small children carried down the highway is not uncommon. Where was I . . .
I was looking for a spot to make a broad-based comment on your site and this seems to be the perfect place.
As I sat here reading and re-reading your work for the past 20 minutes, I kept wondering why everything you had to say – especially in your Welcome – resonated so much for me. Finally, it came to me (sometimes with me, things take awhile): We are two peas in a pod halfway around the world from one another. Honestly, it’s frightening . . . in the most positive sense of the word.
Your honesty, humor and antithesis-to-preaching approach is incredibly refreshing. And your personal story — like you, I’ve been way up and even further down. Clint Eastwood’s “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” might well have been the forerunner to my professional life. I’ve said to any number of people over the years – when you’re on the radio, on stage or writing an article, an audience knows THE SECOND you’re lying to them. “Lying” meaning not speaking from the heart. You understand that in no uncertain terms.
As soon as I finish here, I’m putting you on my Sites I Read at Blog Harbor. I plan on coming back quite often.
Best,
Christopher
Dear Christopher, thank you for your immensely generous comment and for including us on your most excellent blog. Those who doubt the power of Twitter to connect like-minded souls need read no further! Best regards indeed.
Paul,
I have nearly completed my first decade of overnight success!
I believe in a steady as you go strategy and in truth I would say I have just learn’t to crawl and I am now dragging myself up onto the furniture and fingers crossed my first steps are not to far away!
Great blog.
Regards
Robin
Good on you, Robin! It was good to discover your blog and I’m grateful for your visit and kind words.
Your very welcome Paul,
Must answer your comment @ Dolly Char
Love your blog Paul…great work!