Supply Chain & Logistics Management

01 / About you

Your name, and what you're sitting on

Your name

Which of these do you personally control?

The Supply Chain & Logistics Management group Other LinkedIn groups A LinkedIn company page A personal LinkedIn following worth posting to A website or domain An email list A registered company A newsletter

Which other groups, and roughly how big?

How many people are on that email list, and where does it live? Mailchimp, a spreadsheet, somewhere else

What's the company, and does it already trade?

02 / Where this is now

What it earns today

Is the group making you any money at the moment?

Nothing at all The odd bit — ad hoc, nothing regular Regular income, but small Regular and meaningful

Where does that money come from?

Roughly what does it bring in a month?

Has anyone ever offered to pay you for access to the group?

Yes, more than once Once or twice No, never

What did they want, and what did you say?

What have you already tried that didn't work? saves me suggesting it back to you

03 / The boring but important bit

Who actually owns it

If this started earning real money tomorrow, whose money is it?

Mine, personally A company I own Shared with one or more of the other admins Honestly haven't thought about it

What's the arrangement with the others — is anyone owed a share, or is it goodwill?

Any issue with your current employer if this becomes a real business?

None at all Possibly — worth being careful Yes, that's a real constraint Not sure

What's the constraint?

04 / The point of all this

What good looks like for you

Not what the business does — what you want out of it. These pull in completely different directions, so be honest rather than ambitious.

Pick the one that matters most

A second income alongside the day job Enough to replace the day job Build something I can sell Deal flow and credibility for the work I already do Genuinely not sure — that's part of what I want to work out

What would it need to clear a month to be worth leaving for?

Over what sort of timeframe?

What does a genuinely good lead look like for you?

Realistically, how many hours a week can you give this?

Can you put money in, or does it have to fund itself from day one?

It has to fund itself I could put a little in I could fund a proper build Depends what it's for

Roughly what could you put in to get started?

05 / The fork in the road

Which business are we actually building?

Your notes had two different companies in them. They need different money, different skills and different risk, and doing both at once is the reliable way to do neither.

Which is closer to what you want to start with?

Monetise the audience — sponsorship, partner referrals, paid community Build a trading business — food import/export, drop shipping — and use the audience to launch it Both, but the audience first Not sure — that's exactly what I want help deciding

06 / If it's the audience

Selling to the audience

Which of these would you actually be comfortable doing? your name is on it, so this matters

Sponsored posts from vendors A paid partner directory Charging for warm introductions A paid members' community Consulting off the back of it A paid job board Paid events or webinars Newsletter sponsorship Selling data or lists

And which of those would you not want your name near?

Is there anyone today who you think would genuinely pay?

Yes, I can name them Probably, but nobody's said so No idea Honestly, no

Who? Rough names or types are fine.

07 / If it's the goods

The trading idea

What are you actually thinking of moving?

Have you actually sourced, shipped or sold anything yet?

Yes, real orders A trial or sample run Talked to suppliers only Nothing yet — it's still an idea

What happened, and what did it teach you?

Your note said "no customers in the Philippines" — is that the plan, or the problem?

08 / What you showed me

The DHL picture

You sent through the DHL Fulfillment Network partner pages. I want to know which bit of that you were pointing at.

What appealed about it?

One brand at the front, many partners behind You don't have to own the operations Partners pay to be in the network It looks credible and enterprise-grade The customer gets one door instead of ten Honestly, it just looked like a good website

In that picture, which are you?

The platform — I own the thing everyone plugs into The front door — I own the brand and the audience, partners do the work The broker — I make introductions and take a cut The operator — I actually deliver the service Not sure

What would a member get from this that they can't get by just posting in the group for free? if there's no honest answer to this yet, say so — it's the most useful thing you can tell me

09 / The numbers

Reach, not membership

A strong post of yours reached about 7,400 people out of 1.26 million. That's the real audience — the million is a label.

Does that number surprise you?

No, that's about what I see Lower than I thought Higher than I thought I've never looked

What do you do with the group at the moment?

What do members message you asking for, most often?

10 / Risk

What worries you

Tick anything that genuinely concerns you

Losing the group — LinkedIn owns it, not me Wrecking the group's reputation by selling to it Spam and bots getting in Not having the time Falling out with the other admins Spending money and getting nothing back Not knowing where to start Somebody else doing it first

Anything that's flat-out off the table?

11 / The dream

If I could wave a wand

One

Two

Three

Anything else I should know before I come back with a plan?