Leanpreneur v.1

Hey Reader,

Something a bit different this week, this is a pilot edition of the Leanpreneur newsletter.

I want to help people like me (solopreneurs and lean businesses) build businesses that enhance their lives rather than own their lives.

I’m partway on my journey but have had a glimpse of what technology, systems and old-school common sense can do to free up personal time, whilst enhancing profitability and opportunity.

This is what this newsletter is about. I’ll share details of my own lean projects, bring in experts to teach you about their lean businesses, and share as many resources as I can with you.

Let’s dive in.

Contributor: Alex Lockey

This is a section where I'll feature a guest leanpreneur.

We'll learn about their business(es) and they'll share a tutorial with us.

This week, it's me.

Primer

I run Bolt Search, a recruitment business that specialises in the education sector in the UK. You can read more about me here.

I ended up building a lean business after starting out as a solopreneur, growing a team and ending up disliking what I had built. I reverted to solo 2 years ago and built with nocode and AI to replace the staff I got rid of.

I now only work part time in my service business and I’ve created productised services, saleable assets, and profitable partnerships along the way.

We now run a job board that complements our recruitment offer, and serve our customers various other solutions to help their businesses. I’d say the team size is 1.25; my wife and I. We outsource a few things to contractors: web design/development and some SEO-focused content.

I currently work around 20 hours per week on the recruitment business, with the remainder of my time spent on building other projects and things like this newsletter 🙌

Tutorial: Creating Case Studies That Convert Using AI

I'm going to show you how we build out case study landing pages quickly that help convert high ticket sales.

​Watch it (10mins)​

Life Before

Before building out our case study process, we either didn’t collect them or, if we did, they were time-consuming to produce.

Sure, we collect LinkedIn recommendations and Google reviews but we wanted something more substantial to aid our sales process.

In the past I’d created PDF case studies and maybe a handful of short video testimonials. They often lacked context and substance. I suspect not everyone had the time or inclination to read them.

I needed something more engaging, more credible and easy to produce. I wanted prospects to be able to choose how they consume the case study but I have limited design skills and zero video editing skills.

Life Afterwards

After creating this process, I’m now able to create compelling case study landing pages in under an hour. The results is a landing page that includes the full video interview and a breakdown of the case study for those who prefer reading. Here is a finished case study.

The process is quick, doesn't require advanced design or video editing skills, and doesn't take up much of my clients' time.

Step by Step

1. Template for Questions

I created a comprehensive script for the case study interview. It covers the following elements:

- Introduction (before)

- Their search for answers

- Taking the plunge (including any reservations they had about working with us)

- Breakthroughs

- Their big win and major milestones

- Their new reality

Throughout we’re looking for _journey moments_which are pivotal to their story of working with us

2. Inviting Clients

I always keep this intentionally light and usually ask straight after a successful project. Use something like:

Do you think you might have half an hour to record a short case study with me some time in January, please? I appreciate you're busy so just if you have the time and the inclination to of course!

Do you think I could grab you for a short video call to record some case study content, please? Appreciate that it might be a bit too hectic at the moment.

3. Recording the Interview

I used Zoom for the client interview. I’m not overly fussed on having high production values so I record this in one take. I think not over producing lends credibility to the case study. If you’re looking to improve the standard, then you could use something like Riverside instead.

4. Working with the Audio

With Zoom, it’s simple to take the audio and have it transcribed. I used Castmagic to transcribe and it has some cool functionality to extract details such as timestamps, quotes, key topics and social posts.

Alternatively, you could use Rev.com for a transcription or one of the many Zoom add ons such as Krisp.

5. Creating the Landing Page

I built a template website with sections for the opportunity, challenges, solution, results, a parting quote, and a call to action. First off, I used I Leadpages for the landing page. You could use lower cost tools like Carrd or Yep.so.

From there, I gave this to a designer to re-develop a template page on Webflow.

6. Extracting Landing Page Copy

I use Typingmind as a chat interface to ChatGPT and gave it a 2-part prompt. Firstly, introducing the company and then secondly asking it to produce the website copy. These are the prompts I used:

There was quite a bit of back and forth with ChatGPT to land on the most appropriate copy but it gets you close.

7. Finalising the Case Study

From there it’s simply a case of filling the gaps on your landing page template. Drop the copy in, add the video and use something like Canva for any imagery.

Now you have a live case study to share with clients.

List of Steps

1. Create a format and template for questions.

2. Invite the client for a case study interview.

3. Record the interview using Zoom.

4. Extract the audio and get a transcript.

5. Create a landing page template.

6. Extract the copywriting using ChatGPT.

7. Finalise the case study by adding the copy and images to the template.

Interesting Reading

​13 Ideas from Startup to Profitable Startup​

​Google Core Search Update & Impact on Job Boards​

​Creating a magic marketplace​

Reader Wins & Progress

Are you a lean business operator on a similar journey?

Hit reply and let me know of a win that you would like to share with our readers

More Value

Looking for more orientation on Leanpreneurism? I made up the word so it’s probably best to lay out exactly what I mean.

​Check out the article on my blog here.

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Did you make it this far? Do I stick or twist?

Would love to hear your thoughts and thanks for reading.

Until next week,

Alex | @AlexLockey4​

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Ways I can Help You:

> Extra Resources: Check out my blog for longer form content

> Need Help? Just hit reply, ask and I’ll do my best

> Consult: If you’re interested in booking in a 1:1 consulting session you can do so here.

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