How “Free Up Your Business” Got Started and Why It’s a Perfect Book For You

Hey everyone. Connor Gillivan here. Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of FreeUp and Author of the upcoming book, Free Up Your Business: 50 Secrets to Bootstrapping Million Dollar Companies. On this past Wednesday, March 29th, we announced to everyone in the FreeUp community that we would be publishing our own book sharing secrets about how my business partner, Nathan Hirsch, and I have been building million dollar companies with little to no investment since we met in our college dorm rooms back in 2010. In the 7 short years that we have been working together, we’ve built two multi-million dollar companies within the eCommerce industry by implementing the secrets that are presented within this new book.

As we embark upon an exciting 4 weeks of educating you about Free Up Your Business: 50 Secrets to Bootstrapping Million Dollar Companies and lead up to the eventual launch in both eBook and paperback on Amazon.com and through our own sales channels, I wanted to give you a deeper look into why we decided to write this book, who it is written for, how it can help you as a business owner or entrepreneur, and when you can get your hands on your own copy. Buckle in and get ready to be blown away by the amazing content that you will be able to purchase in the upcoming weeks.

What Inspired the Writing of “Free Up Your Business?”

If I remember correctly, it was towards the end of the summer of 2016 and Nate had messaged me on Skype sharing a document that he had created. Similar to many projects that we have started in the past, it all started with a simple Google document where a ton of thoughts had been thrown. He told me to give it a look when I had a chance and that it was 15 pages or so of guiding principles that he had been jotting down for quite some time as we worked together on building our businesses. Gladly, I opened the doc and read through the content that he had tossed in. Some of it was highly detailed with examples from our experiences together and others were just one liners that I think he knew I would just understand. I gave it a quick glance, liked what I saw, and added it to my Marketing bookmarks on Google chrome to come back to at a later date. As you may know, there are a lot of moving parts when running your own business. I didn’t quite have time at that second to dive into writing a book using the content that Nate had sent over, but I couldn’t let the idea slip away.

Over the following 2-3 months, I returned to the Google doc and Nate and I started to have more conversations about the book making it seem like more of a reality that we could put this thing together. I had always dreamed of writing and publishing a book and it was actually on my bucket list of achievements for 2017 so it turned out to be perfect timing. I had been working on a book for my personal platform, ConnorGillivan.com, but it was taking longer than I wanted it to because of everything else that was going on. This was the perfect opportunity.

It started to reach the end of the year when all eCommerce businesses are in full swing and so we lost track of it for a couple of months while we solely focused on fulfilling all of the worker requests that spilled in from our network of clients and all of their friends that had waited until the last minute to hire remote workers. Without much time to commit to writing the book, we both slowly and consistently added more and more secrets that we had learned together while building our businesses.

As the holiday rush began to settle down and we got our feet back under our chairs, we started to talk about making the book a reality in the first quarter of 2017. We agreed that the only way that we could make it happen is if I committed each Friday to simply writing, planning, and creating the book. If I didn’t have a schedule with time set aside for simply focusing on the book, it wouldn’t happen. We had learned from similar experiences in the past so we set it in stone. Each Friday for the first quarter, I would stay away from Skype, email, and other projects as much as possible to write the content of this book.

It’s now almost 3 months since we set that schedule and we are on pace to launch the book, Free Up Your Business, at the end of April to everyone in our community and farther. As I have worked on each piece of the book, it has brought feelings rushing back of why I wanted to write a book in the first place: to make a positive impact on others trying to achieve life as an entrepreneur. It’s been a passion of mine for quite some time now and I’m a strong believer that self-education is one of the most powerful agents of change that we have as entrepreneurs. With the Internet, we have access to free education that we can utilize at any given moment to advance our knowledge of a given subject. When writing this book, I was inspired to create a piece of content that would not only join that massive collection of information online, but also teach other entrepreneurs and business owners how they can build their own million dollar business and create a dream life that they want for themselves.

Who Is It Written For?

Free Up Your Business is written for individuals that are interested in taking their business and entrepreneurship knowledge to the next level. The title indicates that it is 50 secrets to building million dollar companies and I made it that purposefully because the strategies within can be applied to starting your first business, growing an already existing business, or leading a multi-million dollar company. The secrets are not limited to any particular business owner and they can be applied in many different ways depending on the situation that you find yourself in as an entrepreneur.

Most importantly, the book is written for individuals who want to learn and become better business owners. The best entrepreneurs, leaders, managers, and business professionals  understand that you must continue to learn in order to become the best possible version of yourself for your company. This book is yet another step along that journey with principles that Nate and I have been implementing and iterating upon for the 7+ years that we have been working together.

What Is It About?

Free Up Your Business is a 170 page book that walks you through the 6 key aspects of bootstrapping million dollar companies with each secret accompanied by personal stories from our experiences building our first businesses, Portlight and FreeUp. The 6 key aspects that are focused on throughout the book are:

1. Get the financials down
2. Create your strategic plan…with an open mind
3. Build a reliable, trusting, and intelligent group of workers
4. Lead and organize like a real boss
5. Make sure you are prioritizing
6. Always put the customer first

Similar to a guide on entrepreneurship, the book first defines each secret and explains how you can directly apply it to building your business. Second, it shares a personal experience that we have gone through while applying that secret to the growth of our companies and the results that have come from it. As you read through each chapter, there is a guiding voice that continues to bring all of the content together and guides you towards creating your own million dollar company.

What Are the Secrets?

Now, I don’t want to spoil all of the fun, but I want you to see the type of content that you’ll be getting when you purchase this book. Below are 6 of the secrets that are within this book with a short description of the lesson that you will learn as a result of reading about it in this book.

1. Bootstrap and Fund It Yourself: Learn what bootstrapping is and how you can start and grow your business with minimal outside investment. I’ll teach you how to focus on cash flow positive business models and intelligently manage your finances so that your profits are being re-invested into growth of your top and bottom lines.

2. Be Open to Change: Learn how to create a strategic plan that sets you on the right path towards what you want to achieve while staying open to opportunities as they arise. I’ll teach you how to create a 1 year plan with a clear vision of where you want to be and how you can take small steps each day towards those goals. Then I’ll teach you how important it is to be on your toes so that you can make adjustments when needed.

3. Lay the Groundwork for New Workers: Learn a proven 5 step process that we have been implementing for years while on-boarding new workers. I’ll teach you how to ensure that new workers are set up properly, expectations are clear, and they are prepared to thrive within your organization.

4. Delegate Tasks: Learn how to become a master at delegating, one of the most important qualities of high impact leaders. I’ll teach you the action steps that Nate and I take every day to make sure that tasks that we should not be handling are delegated to the right people. This one secret will save you hundreds of hours over the first month of leading your business if you implement it properly.

5. Value Other People’s Time: Learn how to place value on other people’s time so that they are more inclined to work with you and your business. I’ll teach you how we have made key relationships with influencers and business owners within our industry through this secret of valuing their time. The best way to connect with highly influential people is by respecting how they want to be contacted and communicated with.

6. How to Talk to Angry Customers: Learn our 6 step process for speaking with angry customers so that you end the conversation with them back on your side. I’ll teach you how Nate has built amazing relationships with our 1,000+ clients through this particular secret and how it ensures that clients keep coming back to use our service.

These are only 6 of the 50 secrets that are packed into this book about bootstrapping million dollar companies. When we set out to write this book, we did it with the intention of creating an extremely valuable resource that thousands of business owners could utilize today and in the distant future.

When Can I Buy My Copy?

I’m glad you asked! Free Up Your Business: 50 Secrets to Bootstrapping Million Dollar Companies officially launches for sale on April 26th on FreeUp and Amazon.com in both eBook and paperback. In the weeks leading up to the launch of the book, keep an eye out for a pre-ordering period where we’ll be offering the book at exclusive discounts to the first people who buy the book and get involved in sharing it out on social media.