Let's start out by being totally honest here. I am freaking scared of going fastlane. It scares the living crap out of me. What if I go for one of my ideas and it doesn't work? What if I invest ALL that time and energy, and end up with nothing? Where the heck am I going to find the people I need to help me- cheaply? Designers, coders? How can I get the funding I need, how can I guarantee I'll pay any debt off, how can I guarantee success?
For me, the best option seems a little counterintuitive, but trust me on this one. My plan is to go slowlane.
WHAT?! "Ryan, you're throwing your life away!" you might be screaming (in your head at least). Before you go throwing full wine bottles at your computer, allow me to explain.
My plan is to start slowlane, make the money I need, get credibility and all, and THEN go fastlane. I do online marketing work for local businesses. A few months ago, I had literally 2 clients paying me ~$225 a month each. Just because this is very public and all, I don't want to go into detail, but I now have a lot more clients at a little over double that rate (on average). I've started taking things seriously. I'm marketing myself, going to networking events, sitting down and doing consultative selling, learning about branding, and training myself to be the best damn internet marketer in all of New Jersey.
So where does the Fastlane come in to play? Well, at my current rate of growth, and with my current plans and goals, I'll be able to pay my way through college no problem. Between my income, savings, parent's savings, and with a little luck, a scholarship or two, I'll be set. Notice the complete lack of student loans in that plan. I'm getting my slowlane to the point where I have a pretty good intrinsic value of $100-200/hour. In college, I'm looking to study entrepreneurship. I need to get some background in finance and business law and management, all of which I am clueless in. After that, I'd like to overhaul my marketing business AGAIN to the point where I can turn it into a Fastlane business.
It's all about systemizing my processes, automating what I can, and outsourcing the work to others. Eventually I'd like to be a Virtual CEO, having my own employees in America, but not being tethered to working in an office.
Let's talk about customers and the needs I'm filling. My current target market is small businesses around central jersey. The problem with the other competitors in my area (and luckily, there isn't any really stiff competition in my immediate vicinity) is that they're incompetent, they're an expense, and they overcharge. They don't know what they're doing, they're not delivering results, their marketing is an expense rather than an investment, and they just plain and simple charge too much for it. On the contrary, I have a firm grasp of marketing, experience marketing online, and I dedicate myself to learning everything I can about social media and SEO and online marketing. These other competitors are just web design companies who think that they can call META tags SEO, or ad agencies that think they know how to do social media. I'm very focused in what I do and don't do, I deliver an ROI, and track everything carefully to report back to my clients. All at a reasonable rate
So that's my plan. Start slowlane, increase my intrinsic value, get more clients, systemize, automate, outsource, and then expand and go Fastlane.
...and I'm doing pretty well so far. I currently have 2 contracts signed and ready to go, a 3rd proposal waiting to be turned into a contract, 2 consultations scheduled, a guy who'd like to schedule a consultation, and a woman who needs a Facebook page made that I haven't gotten back to yet. I'm working on building up an AdWords campaign, looking into redesigning my website, and started a brand new facebook page.
I'm working through a book called Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days, which is helping me build a marketing campaign around my business. There's business networking events in the area to attend, and my "brand" already has some kick-butt advocates who happen to be very influential people in the area (thanks to my volunteer marketing work for nonprofits like the local library). Let's see, what else.... oh yeah! I got some new full-color, nice and thick business cards made up with a mobile phone QR code on the back as well. There's a little advertising strip on the bottom of the ones in this picture, as I just ordered a free test pack of 50. I really like them, so I think I'll go ahead and get 200 without advertising.
Here's a picture of me during a free period in band class with them.
So, things are really taking off. There's so much to do, and I'm really psyched to get to work on all of it. Here's what's on my to-do list for the near future/summer:
That's all for now. I'll keep you guys posted as more clients come in and I do even more stuff to build a kick-butt slowlane business and transition it into a kick-butt fastlane business!
For me, the best option seems a little counterintuitive, but trust me on this one. My plan is to go slowlane.
WHAT?! "Ryan, you're throwing your life away!" you might be screaming (in your head at least). Before you go throwing full wine bottles at your computer, allow me to explain.
My plan is to start slowlane, make the money I need, get credibility and all, and THEN go fastlane. I do online marketing work for local businesses. A few months ago, I had literally 2 clients paying me ~$225 a month each. Just because this is very public and all, I don't want to go into detail, but I now have a lot more clients at a little over double that rate (on average). I've started taking things seriously. I'm marketing myself, going to networking events, sitting down and doing consultative selling, learning about branding, and training myself to be the best damn internet marketer in all of New Jersey.
So where does the Fastlane come in to play? Well, at my current rate of growth, and with my current plans and goals, I'll be able to pay my way through college no problem. Between my income, savings, parent's savings, and with a little luck, a scholarship or two, I'll be set. Notice the complete lack of student loans in that plan. I'm getting my slowlane to the point where I have a pretty good intrinsic value of $100-200/hour. In college, I'm looking to study entrepreneurship. I need to get some background in finance and business law and management, all of which I am clueless in. After that, I'd like to overhaul my marketing business AGAIN to the point where I can turn it into a Fastlane business.
It's all about systemizing my processes, automating what I can, and outsourcing the work to others. Eventually I'd like to be a Virtual CEO, having my own employees in America, but not being tethered to working in an office.
Let's talk about customers and the needs I'm filling. My current target market is small businesses around central jersey. The problem with the other competitors in my area (and luckily, there isn't any really stiff competition in my immediate vicinity) is that they're incompetent, they're an expense, and they overcharge. They don't know what they're doing, they're not delivering results, their marketing is an expense rather than an investment, and they just plain and simple charge too much for it. On the contrary, I have a firm grasp of marketing, experience marketing online, and I dedicate myself to learning everything I can about social media and SEO and online marketing. These other competitors are just web design companies who think that they can call META tags SEO, or ad agencies that think they know how to do social media. I'm very focused in what I do and don't do, I deliver an ROI, and track everything carefully to report back to my clients. All at a reasonable rate
So that's my plan. Start slowlane, increase my intrinsic value, get more clients, systemize, automate, outsource, and then expand and go Fastlane.
...and I'm doing pretty well so far. I currently have 2 contracts signed and ready to go, a 3rd proposal waiting to be turned into a contract, 2 consultations scheduled, a guy who'd like to schedule a consultation, and a woman who needs a Facebook page made that I haven't gotten back to yet. I'm working on building up an AdWords campaign, looking into redesigning my website, and started a brand new facebook page.
I'm working through a book called Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days, which is helping me build a marketing campaign around my business. There's business networking events in the area to attend, and my "brand" already has some kick-butt advocates who happen to be very influential people in the area (thanks to my volunteer marketing work for nonprofits like the local library). Let's see, what else.... oh yeah! I got some new full-color, nice and thick business cards made up with a mobile phone QR code on the back as well. There's a little advertising strip on the bottom of the ones in this picture, as I just ordered a free test pack of 50. I really like them, so I think I'll go ahead and get 200 without advertising.
Here's a picture of me during a free period in band class with them.
So, things are really taking off. There's so much to do, and I'm really psyched to get to work on all of it. Here's what's on my to-do list for the near future/summer:
- Start blogging about local marketing on my website
- Have a designer make a logo
- Come up with a decent slogan/tagline
- Possible website redesign
- Write/self-publish a book to sell to prospects who don't want to work with me (possible way to recover an otherwise lost sale, builds credibility)
- Do a kick-butt case study of my methods
That's all for now. I'll keep you guys posted as more clients come in and I do even more stuff to build a kick-butt slowlane business and transition it into a kick-butt fastlane business!
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