This week Simon is on location at York Butter Factory with Tim Martin, founder of NET:101.

NET:101 is Australia's largest social media educator, offering one and two day courses in social media in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. We hear about Tim's journey pre-NET:101 and why he decided to set up the business, and also the ways in which Tim is successfully scaling the business by using outsourced services rather than employees and offices.

Tim has been running NET:101 for four years. Previously Tim was working in online design and marketing, providing SEO and Google AdWords services via an agency model. Tim found he was spending a lot of time training clients as well as implementing digital marketing and decided to focus on training people to do the marketing in their own businesses.

We discuss where Tim’s customers and clients come from. Tim used to use AdWords and SEO to bring potential clients to his site. He decided to focus on a content marketing strategy, providing large quantities of quality traffic to attract people to the website via Google searches. Tim also uses email marketing to keep in contact with his clients and inform them about future courses which may be of interest.

Tim uses Google Analytics to understand where traffic to the NET:101 website comes from, and which segments of that traffic convert into customers and clients, booking courses online.

A couple of years ago Tim decided that scaling NET:101 in the traditional manner of opening offices and hiring employees was not the route he wanted to take, instead taking an innovative approach to scale using outsourced services and continuing to work from home. Tim has structured NET:101 so that most costs are variable rather than fixed, allowing NET:101 to grow without increasing overheads.

Tim now has a graphic designer and a Virtual PA (VA) in the Philippines, and all the businesses' software tools are Software As A Service (SAAS) packages available online. Tim travels a lot for work and pleasure and this business structure allows him to work from any location with an internet connection, and Tim can also scale his business up or down very quickly without having to ‘hire or fire’.

During the interview we also talk about Tim's playful side. The NET:101 website hosts a satirical blog 'Robot in the Machine' which as well as being a bit of fun is a useful tool for pre-screening clients. The images on NET:101 show Tim holding a fish... we discover the official word on this and also the REAL story!

Simon and Tim also discuss the way that Social Media and the internet in general can be used as an enabler to forming business relationships, and Tim tells us about the importance of having a point of difference, even if being different is more work.

We also get into the details of the Google Analytics training course Simon is facilitating in Melbourne later this month.

On the show this week:

Tim Martin
Simon Pilkington

Mentioned in this week's show:

NET:101
York Butter Factory
Google Analytics Essentials training course in Melbourne
Robot in the Machine blog

News this week: Yellow Click Road is now available on the iTunes store! Don't forget to leave us a five star review ;)