Exiting the cubicle farm and taking Web-Design full time

[RicardoGrande]

Mopped up the surprise client and final payment coming in soon and I'll get to do my "I saved this guys @$$" case study. Right now turning back to updates for an old client, getting paid which is nice.

Sales call today with a guy who's been in contact with me for a year for at least one site but looking at 2. Unfortunately I was upfront and stated I don't do any SEO though I did have someone who could help him, but did warn him the lowest rates I've seen in my area are 1800$/mo.
He had me update my quote but informed me he'd check in with another agency he was referred by a friend, going to see if they can do the buildout+seo together for a good rate. Crossing my fingers they're like the other local ones and quote him 18,000$ just to install wordpress and slap a theme down so I can clearly undercut them but still get a good profit.

No touchbacks on my cold e-mails yet but I think I only did about 50 in the past 5 weeks- no follow ups but that's my fault. Spent time today finding ways to get lists again. Still have some old leads to follow up with on the phone.

Sh!t is really heating up at work and I'm doing some of my best work but stepping on landmines reminding me why I've focused so much on this and not a career getting beat down like a dog- wish me continued luck.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

Update:
Surprise client has ghosted(?) me. Was supposed to get him on a call to approve the new site I built up and take final payment, then he put off that call, and he's been kicking it down the road weekly for a month now.

E-mails- about 200 out, one touchback though I don't believe it will be a high-paying job. Weird situation since it won't be a huge-ticket job, but I think it would be a good inroad since he's massively B2B working with people I want to work with across the u.s.- this one is in progress and doing some mockups for him.
At about 160$ of spend for about 275 "qualified" leads my contractor has dug up, but no touchbacks besides the above unfortunately. I did have him go through old D7 lists which is more cost efficient, need to double down on that since he's the only upworker I trust (put out another posting but didn't like the replies/work I got in the range I provided- I may take this back to a manual task for myself).

Networking- Going to more, found a hot B2B networking event in my city, they already have a WD but they have 3 other groups who need one... but the groups meet during business hours so this is something else that has to wait until after the dayjob- had two people get in touch who wanted calls within this month at least. Found other events as well, had 6 requests for website audits at one which were all completed but they went ghost.

Follow ups- More can kicks, had 3 ripen last week, two wanted calls then again ghosted at the times they requested I call them- not getting depressed, I'm tired of feeling down and not doing sh!t for months, I'm tired of feeling sick and tired.

Been listening to interviews of other people that got into freelancing, the recurring theme is always "never give up, just do good work, offer value, and the moment everything kicks off you'll be looking back at your lowest lows from the stratosphere"- with that in mind, I soldier on (also been putting out resumes and doing dayjob interviews at least).