Summer Shift: Focus on Products That Sell Themselves

What Mike Michelini is up to Now – July 4 – 10, 2021

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First half of 2021 behind us – still a world of lockdowns combined w/ vaccines. Looking forward to rocking the end of 2021. (Oh ya, and it is July 4?)

• Re-structure again the sales and marketing departments. Janette our consultant working closely with us, and need to find the right business model for GFA first before re-building it again. So will take the summer off from GFA social media marketing.
• DWeb Incubator mentor sessions will start this week, with 1 – 2 sessions and some 1 on 1s.
• Re-evaluating launch strategy for Indigitus dWeb router.
• Looking at school plan for the kids in Fall semester.

For those who want to hear the full week plan for Shadstone Limited, Mike’s company (removing sensitive info) – here it is:

Week Plan July 4- 10, 2021 Shadstone Limited

Never a boring week at Shadstone! I’d say we are diving even deeper into the “dWeb” and transitioning more of the team and the focus towards it.

Some HR matters first.

There is some shifting happening and for various reasons we will put a pause on the GFA marketing push over July / summer and reflect on what the core business model of it is. At the same time, some will be transitioning out.

We will be re-evaluating the budget we allocate to marketing GFA (social media / client / member services) as it is mainly a “loss leader” that generates leads and business opportunities for our other projects. We are working closely with our consultant, Janette, on the correct positioning and market strategy for GFA and the marketing team.

So will we start hiring again? No, we are looking INTERNAL on the team first. Many of you have been consistently performing with us and we think we can see how we can join more as a core team to fill in some of those gaps. For sure we will be less active in our marketing, but we want to focus on a core product offering at GFA anyway.

Now with that out of the way, last week was intense on other projects:

• DWeb incubator kicked off on our Friday morning and we are still evaluating the best way to coordinate and communicate with the teams and mentors. It is a lot of coordination. Online programs almost seem like more work than in person. As for in person, the effort is focused on getting them into the room then it kind of sorts itself out.
• The Indigitus router is REALLY rocking. For the last 1-2 weeks, we’ve been talking to various Youtubers and getting great feedback and they cannot wait to talk about it on their channel. We didn’t even plan to release any of an ambassador batch but squeezed a private batch for Tactical Investing’s private members (this worked out as it was not a public launch).
• Anne is doing AMAZING on continuing to step up on both of these projects, as well as many on our team as well. Also Manly on keeping the evolving shopping cart situation smooth.

Also, comparing dWeb and Indigitus to GFA, there is basically no marketing on those with TONS of response. Whereas with GFA, we are pushing and investing a ton on marketing with very little return. Those working in those departments must be able to see this clearly themselves.

BUT the idea is to connect GFA + the dWeb businesses. Indigitus is a perfect example of that. As Don our partner there is from the GFA community (speaker / podcast guest), plus our experience in China sourcing and ecommerce is what helped us make that strategic alliance w/ the Indigitus joint venture. The plan also is to make a GFA podcast about Indigitus once it is a bit more prepared.

And the ultimate is to connect it all under a GFA village, with incubator investments of dWeb and ecommerce projects.

I’ve been on calls and doing deals for various GFA broker Amazon FBA consolidation projects and working on that.

So what is the plan this week?

It is a USA holiday Monday (technically Sunday July 4) for Independence Day. But of course I’ll be working as usual as I’m in Asia and work with mostly non-US business people.

I think this week is less events (I don’t see any GFA webinars or dWeb/ handshake events) with exception for a couple of the incubator mentor sessions. So we will be focusing on restructuring the team a bit. LJ is amazing as we all know and we are re-evaluating the organization chart and the product/services we offer.

Hope to provide opportunity for those with us long term and while there is stress in re-org, we do it with the best intentions. Let’s upgrade those on our team and let them grow and develop more.