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Man Dedicating Himself To Business

Michael Keaveney

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Hi, it's Michael. I'm doing a maths degree in college, and don't want a depressing finance job. The rather difficult experiences I have went through in life are worth more than working in a corporate-serving, "fulfilling" finance career. I believe myself to be a disciplined, spiritual, fair, just and wise person. There are many changes I intend to make in my country and in society as I see it, like the education system. Perhaps this post can form as a basis of accountability for me, for there are no others I can trust with the duty I intend to uphold. This starts with me diving into the world of providing value for the consumers. I'm taking a course on Udemy to build skills and "get the ball rolling", so to speak. Digital marketing is growing, and so will the competition; as such, I will need to become somewhat exceptional in this area.

Once I gain a significant degree of capital, I will either continue the digital marketing or venture into another area, as I see the supply of digital marketing increasing.

Entrepreneurship is the first career I've found appealing in a while. At first, of course it was for the selfish intention of making bank and doing what I want, without leeching time suckers. But "The Millionaire Fastlane " and "Unscripted : Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship", the production of genuine value sounds so much more fulfilling. The idea of doing what needs to be done for a passionate end goal easily outweighs the prospect of passionately doing despite the laborious future.
 
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Michael Keaveney

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Lot of talk. What are you actually going to DO?
be specific.
set dates.
do.
report back.
My bad, didn't see this.
Web development.
Built a free WordPress LMS for a client, doing four more free projects until I begin to get paid.
Started cold calling 10 people per day 2 weeks ago. Getting the hang of it.
I'll do it for 3+ hours straight tomorrow and on each subsequent week day.
If I don't, you have permission to call me a little bitch.
 

MarcusRich

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My bad, didn't see this.
Web development.
Built a free WordPress LMS for a client, doing four more free projects until I begin to get paid.
Started cold calling 10 people per day 2 weeks ago. Getting the hang of it.
I'll do it for 3+ hours straight tomorrow and on each subsequent week day.
If I don't, you have permission to call me a little bitch.
Each time you do one report it back on here and keep yourself accountable. I am not looking for permission to call you a little bitch. I am looking forward to calling you a fastlaner if you can take action and stick to posting progress. Further, dedication > motivation is key. Don't let yourself off the hook, take action, do the learning needed for your business, profit.
 
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Michael Keaveney

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Each time you do one report it back on here and keep yourself accountable. I am not looking for permission to call you a little bitch. I am looking forward to calling you a fastlaner if you can take action and stick to posting progress. Further, dedication > motivation is key. Don't let yourself off the hook, take action, do the learning needed for your business, profit.
Well, I'll do that for each 3+ hour session (as each individual call only takes a few minutes, and posting for each one would slow down the process).
Thanks for the quick reply.
 

Oso

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My bad, didn't see this.
Web development.
Built a free WordPress LMS for a client, doing four more free projects until I begin to get paid.
Started cold calling 10 people per day 2 weeks ago. Getting the hang of it.
I'll do it for 3+ hours straight tomorrow and on each subsequent week day.
If I don't, you have permission to call me a little bitch.
Permission is overrated.

Leave cold calling in the early 2000s where it belongs.

Find ~5 people that are down for sales. They are to be paid via commission. The exact percentage is entirely up to you, just don't be cheap (start them at 10% and lmk how that goes, lmfao).

Once you've trained them a bit, they will source your clients, find leads, land sales, land contracts, etc. Meanwhile, you're working either ON the business itself, or you're doing the development work until you have the capital to hire a developer. Hiring a developer to replace you should be a high priority, if not one of the highest. Otherwise you're just "working for a company you conveniently own." It's still a job.

"Digital marketing" gets a lot of shit here because there's literally 0 barrier to entry and everyone is doing it. Cool, both irrelevant points. There's more competition in this space than most (I'm convinced web design/development will eventually be the new drop shipping). Cool, also irrelevant.

The reality of starting anything in digital marketing is, yes, you have a tremendous amount of competition and it can be difficult to sell if you've never sold. That said if you keep one thing in mind, you will succeed. What is it? It's a simple truth of web design, web development, and to be F*cking honest, probably the tech industry as a whole.

Ready?!

...

The vast majority of people/companies/entrepreneurs in this space are pure shit at what they do. They just have bigger balls than you.
 

Michael Keaveney

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Jan 8, 2023
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Permission is overrated.

Leave cold calling in the early 2000s where it belongs.

Find ~5 people that are down for sales. They are to be paid via commission. The exact percentage is entirely up to you, just don't be cheap (start them at 10% and lmk how that goes, lmfao).

Once you've trained them a bit, they will source your clients, find leads, land sales, land contracts, etc. Meanwhile, you're working either ON the business itself, or you're doing the development work until you have the capital to hire a developer. Hiring a developer to replace you should be a high priority, if not one of the highest. Otherwise you're just "working for a company you conveniently own." It's still a job.

"Digital marketing" gets a lot of shit here because there's literally 0 barrier to entry and everyone is doing it. Cool, both irrelevant points. There's more competition in this space than most (I'm convinced web design/development will eventually be the new drop shipping). Cool, also irrelevant.

The reality of starting anything in digital marketing is, yes, you have a tremendous amount of competition and it can be difficult to sell if you've never sold. That said if you keep one thing in mind, you will succeed. What is it? It's a simple truth of web design, web development, and to be F*cking honest, probably the tech industry as a whole.

Ready?!

...

The vast majority of people/companies/entrepreneurs in this space are pure shit at what they do. They just have bigger balls than you.
Cold calling, for me, has been a great way to gain confidence and become a good talker. But maybe you’re right, outreach methods aren’t my speciality. It’s better than emailing. What do you suggest?

I haven’t earned the right to hire anyone lmao. Haven’t earned a penny in my life yet. Down the road, 100% following that advice though.

Yeah it’s gonna be a job at first. I’m fact, a perpetual nose-to-the-grindstone slogfest. But it won’t stay that way.

Regarding that last point, yeah. Again, the main way I’ll get balls is by cold calling hundreds of businesses and getting rejected, time after time again. Just a process.
 
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Michael Keaveney

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Cold called 2 hours today. Not doing anymore because I need high energy levels for my first day at a hotel job (unrelated). Switched from websites to “eCommerce stores.” People were generally more open to the idea of a tangible online store that will actually get them money, rather than just a pretty website. Learning about physical shipping right now. I’ll give another update tomorrow if I can.
 

Michael Keaveney

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Jan 8, 2023
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Did 5 cold calls today. Had to do a 1.5 hour job for an LMS client (not from cold calling), then spent the next 3.5 doing assigned online training for a hotel job. Will do another call on a potential qualifier later on today.
I worked 13 hours yesterday. (not consistently plausible for a multitude of reasons)
 
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MarcusRich

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Did 5 cold calls today. Had to do a 1.5 hour job for an LMS client (not from cold calling), then spent the next 3.5 doing assigned online training for a hotel job. Will do another call on a potential qualifier later on today.
I worked 13 hours yesterday. (not consistently plausible for a multitude of reasons)
Are you working from a script? Do you review the cold calls and try to isolate trends and value skews that land with customers? I am curious why your analytics game looks like and if you have found a way to gamify the calls to try and push yourself. When I first started looking for clients to do crypto investing and education for I found that working from a general script worked the best then letting my passion for the projects and knowledge take the wheel really helped to close. Also, if you haven't, go do a stand up comedy open mic. (no im not telling you to become a comedian) Doing an open mic made cold calls and other interactions so easy for me. Eating sh*t for 5 minutes in front of people makes that stuff feel like nothing and really takes the edge off.
 

Michael Keaveney

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Jan 8, 2023
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Are you working from a script? Do you review the cold calls and try to isolate trends and value skews that land with customers? I am curious why your analytics game looks like and if you have found a way to gamify the calls to try and push yourself. When I first started looking for clients to do crypto investing and education for I found that working from a general script worked the best then letting my passion for the projects and knowledge take the wheel really helped to close. Also, if you haven't, go do a stand up comedy open mic. (no im not telling you to become a comedian) Doing an open mic made cold calls and other interactions so easy for me. Eating sh*t for 5 minutes in front of people makes that stuff feel like nothing and really takes the edge off.
Yes, to both of your first questions. I have made several adjustments to my cold call scripts. Initially I used the "I have something to offer, hang up now or give me 40 seconds" method, now I use "I got something to sell, would now be a good time to talk for 40 seconds." Irish culture prefers people to be less direct and forceful, and it's worked significantly better.
True, actually being passionate about work will assure people more.
Open mic idea is genius. I was struggling to think of anything more socially challenging than cold calls, but there you go.
 

MarcusRich

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Yes, to both of your first questions. I have made several adjustments to my cold call scripts. Initially I used the "I have something to offer, hang up now or give me 40 seconds" method, now I use "I got something to sell, would now be a good time to talk for 40 seconds." Irish culture prefers people to be less direct and forceful, and it's worked significantly better.
True, actually being passionate about work will assure people more.
Open mic idea is genius. I was struggling to think of anything more socially challenging than cold calls, but there you go.
I am not sure if you are aware of straight line sales methods made popular by Jordan Belford. He has a book called “Way of the Wolf” where he really breaks it all down. ( if you’re interested get the audio book he does it and it is really excellent quality content ) I have found that modifying the straight line method to fit your personality and your customers cultural expectations would likely help drive you further in success with your cold calls.
 
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Michael Keaveney

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I am not sure if you are aware of straight line sales methods made popular by Jordan Belford. He has a book called “Way of the Wolf” where he really breaks it all down. ( if you’re interested get the audio book he does it and it is really excellent quality content ) I have found that modifying the straight line method to fit your personality and your customers cultural expectations would likely help drive you further in success with your cold calls.
I'll be sure to take a look at that.
 

Michael Keaveney

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Why are you cold calling if you don't mind me to ask?
It's way more effective than email and messaging, which people instinctively ignore.
It also makes you extremely uncomfortable, which is a good thing, because you're getting better at talking.
Sales, objection handling, the ability to take rejection over and over..the cumulative effects of cold calling are massive.
That is, if you can make it past the first two weeks. Even I'm still uncomfortable making them.
 
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Michael Keaveney

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@Michael Keaveney How are things going? Looking for a progress and process update.
I have not been conducting outreach because I've spent the last few weeks working on this client website.
It involves people booking live lessons, then getting an email with the Zoom link.
Needless to say, it was an arduous process with many steps and complications.
Nonetheless, it's pretty much done now.
I got another client that requires a portfolio website. I got the majority done within one day.
I am planning on working seven and a half hours today, incrementing to eight in 5 days.
A lot of this involves solving painful problems, but it's worth it.
Can't wait to start actually charging for services.
 

Michael Keaveney

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Basically finished the language school and portfolio client websites. Did 150 cold calls in the last 3 days.
Finding leads in advance is a must-have for doing more than 10 cold calls per hour.
Got a meeting next week even though they don't want a website. Convinced them to get on a call anyhow.
And, got my fourth client. I will charge after the fifth.
My question is, how can I charge 1000 per month for a web development service?
I'm thinking an initial payent followed by a commission on any products sold on the site.
Don't want to F*ck someone over, but need to scale somehow.
 
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Andy Black

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how can I charge 1000 per month for a web development service?
I'm thinking an initial payent followed by a commission on any products sold on the site.
Don't want to F*ck someone over, but need to scale somehow.
Reframe that a bit so it's more about them.

What would a business pay 1k/mth for?


PS: I know someone who did free 5-page sited for businesses. He got a load of great local press and his team built over 1,000 sites. All free clients paid a low monthly hosting fee. More than half signed up for monthly content marketing plans.
 

Michael Keaveney

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What's your call to meeting and call to closing ratio?
Call to meeting is maybe 1-2%, call to closing is around 50-70% I'd assume, since my service is free right now, yet some of my prospects said no at first, but I'd be showing them the service anyway and mainly practicing.
So free is helping, but some prospects don't want a site in the first place.
 
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Michael Keaveney

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Reframe that a bit so it's more about them.

What would a business pay 1k/mth for?


PS: I know someone who did free 5-page sited for businesses. He got a load of great local press and his team built over 1,000 sites. All free clients paid a low monthly hosting fee. More than half signed up for monthly content marketing plans.
I'd probably have to leverage SEO, and build high-converting funnels.
To get the business to spend money, even more money should be made for them.
Getting the word out somehow might be needed.
 

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