How to Learn Code, Start a Web Company, $15k+ per month within 9 months

[redthumb]

If any of you guys are creating a list by hand, you could save time by using a web scraper on the yellow pages or Yelp - you can gather a list of 1000+ names in a spread sheet in less than 10 minutes.

Then you can manipulate the data in excel, make notes, delete names you don't want, etc.

I've used import.io - easy to use and does the trick.

It's a lot easier to cold call when you have a list of several hundred names in front of you instead of just a few, and this makes it a lot faster.

Much Appreciated !

Anyone here working close to my time zone? It's currenlty 3:25pm as of this post. Would be great to have contact with people working when I'm working!



Hey mate definitely, I sent you a PM.

Got it

 

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[Lumo]

Just did an hour Skype with someone just getting started. Really nice to pass on all the info that will save the weeks/months I spent figuring it out for myself.

If @MJ DeMarco can make it happen I would like to do an INSIDERS call for this. Its not mega millions but I think 1-2 hours will be enough to get anyone interested started towards a 5-10k monthly income after a few months.

If people are interested in something like this let me know. I have gotten a lot of PMs and while I try my best its not going to be possible to Skype everyone for an hour.

Definitely interested!

 

[Chimp]

it takes time to get the clients to get the photos you need from them

Do you just ask them to take the photos themselves with their phone?

 

[Fox]

Do you just ask them to take the photos themselves with their phone?

Once you have a deposit request the content you will need and photos. They take the longest to get and slow jobs down.

For photos explain they should be well taken, high definition and with good lighting. If they don't have any or only a few photos its best to still only use what is best.

Best photos for a small business are:
- Owner
- Doing Service(s)
- Past Projects/Jobs/Results
- Front Desk, Locations, Company Equipment

And maybe...
- Staff
- Store/Warehouse

Tell them to have their logos and branding in the pics if possible too.

 

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[Born-To-Run]

Do you just ask them to take the photos themselves with their phone?

Unless you can go their yourself to take the photos or have a profesionaly photographer on call then yeah, get them to take the photos. If you have a photographer you can try and up-sell them the service (not hard; professional looking photos instill trust in the clients customers, trust = more sales). If you get a deal with a photographer you can likely get a commission off of them as-well.

On higher end businesses this is a no brainier, for small businesses like the ones I'm targeting at the moment you may find it harder to do the upsell.

 

[Born-To-Run]

Got the makings of a web design group forming here. Just added @redthumb and @gabeb1920 to skype. If anyone is interested in joining shoot me a pm of who you are and where your at (I've only just started myself so don't be shy!).

 

[Luke.]

I tried to run through the pages to see anything about design vs development.

Do you just develop the site or design specific features too? Such as logos, artwork or anything that involves photoshop/sketch/adobe etc.

Essentially what I'm asking is, how important is graphic design?

 

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[JDx]

I tried to run through the pages to see anything about design vs development.

Do you just develop the site or design specific features too? Such as logos, artwork or anything that involves photoshop/sketch/adobe etc.

Essentially what I'm asking is, how important is graphic design?

FWIW, I also do logos and pretty much anything that is desired by the client (obviously to a certain extent) like photo's etc.
Easy mode; designmantic.com, logopond.com, stocklogos.com .
Bonus points; use the logo's at the above sites for inspiration and give it your own twist (so it's free and unique)

 

[Fox]

I tried to run through the pages to see anything about design vs development.

Do you just develop the site or design specific features too? Such as logos, artwork or anything that involves photoshop/sketch/adobe etc.

Essentially what I'm asking is, how important is graphic design?

I use some photoshop but nothing too complicated. If you have photoshop skills there is a lot of things you can do when it comes to web design.

I usually do it myself or just hire off Fiverr if its too much.

 

[Fox]

***

I created a Facebook Group for everyone on here to network and help each other out.
If you want in just PM me (with your FB details) and I will add you.

***

 

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[Born-To-Run]

***

I created a Facebook Group for everyone on here to network and help each other out.
If you want in just PM me (with your FB details) and I will add you.

***

Sigh, I deleted facebook because I loathe it haha. Guess ill be starting it back up (need one for business purposes anyway).

 

[Mr.Donnerhuhn]

Absolutely top-tier thread, Fox!

I'm going to be wrapping my web-development internship in the coming weeks and had been looking around for steps I should consider next when I stumbled into this beauty!

Also, sorry if it's been asked before, but any thoughts on multi-page vs. single-page layouts? Particularly for companies that offer services is it better to just have one hyper-streamlined landing page to drive sales, or have different pages for things like "About Us", "Our Services", "Contact Us", etc...?

 

[Born-To-Run]

Absolutely top-tier thread, Fox!

I'm going to be wrapping my web-development internship in the coming weeks and had been looking around for steps I should consider next when I stumbled into this beauty!

Also, sorry if it's been asked before, but any thoughts on multi-page vs. single-page layouts? Particularly for companies that offer services is it better to just have one hyper-streamlined landing page to drive sales, or have different pages for things like "About Us", "Our Services", "Contact Us", etc...?

I'm still new but ill add in my thoughts on this.

It really depends on the client. Look at their competition, most will want one in a similar vain to their competition. I personally go with the streamlined one page as everything is loaded and their customers don't get lost in the website. Have a banner always at the bottom or top with their number. Right now I'm working with blue collar businesses (Carpet cleaning, plumbing etc.) so this has been my observation so far.

keep it simple for yourself and the client.

 

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[Chimp]

I'm still new but ill add in my thoughts on this.

It really depends on the client. Look at their competition, most will want one in a similar vain to their competition. I personally go with the streamlined one page as everything is loaded and their customers don't get lost in the website. Have a banner always at the bottom or top with their number. Right now I'm working with blue collar businesses (Carpet cleaning, plumbing etc.) so this has been my observation so far.

keep it simple for yourself and the client.

I am working on a making a plumber site myself for no one in particular. 99% of the plumber sites I see have 25+ services they offer with a two paragraph description (water tank installation, clogs, etc.) Do you list all of those on just one page? Obviously not but I'm interested in what you're doing. I was thinking you only have to include the common ones with a very brief description, like a few sentences just because these are my first sites and I'd like to get into the hand of things before doing 10 page sites.

Thanks!

 

[Born-To-Run]

Check out these guys, good page design (Looks ugly but your blue colar clients will love it). Scroll down and you'll see how they handle it.
http://www.jimsplumbing.net.au/plumber-perth/

One of the best ways to handle it I reckon. Remember when designing, design for your clients needs. You may think it would be better suited to go one way but what way do your clients want?

 

[iceyblitz]

this thread is platinum..

 

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[Fox]

Unless you can go their yourself to take the photos or have a profesionaly photographer on call then yeah, get them to take the photos. If you have a photographer you can try and up-sell them the service (not hard; professional looking photos instill trust in the clients customers, trust = more sales). If you get a deal with a photographer you can likely get a commission off of them as-well.

On higher end businesses this is a no brainier, for small businesses like the ones I'm targeting at the moment you may find it harder to do the upsell.

Good points. Even if you don't make money of the photographer directly your site will look a lot better = higher referrals.
Our photo guy charges $300 an hour including the post production costs. Quite an impressive little hustle for him.

 

[Fox]

I am working on a making a plumber site myself for no one in particular. 99% of the plumber sites I see have 25+ services they offer with a two paragraph description (water tank installation, clogs, etc.) Do you list all of those on just one page? Obviously not but I'm interested in what you're doing. I was thinking you only have to include the common ones with a very brief description, like a few sentences just because these are my first sites and I'd like to get into the hand of things before doing 10 page sites.

Thanks!

Careful not to oversell. My uncle used to have a very successful business that relied on 100% phone sales. He said he handed out fliers once with the prices on them and never got any calls - the reason was the info was already there so people didn't "hook". You only want enough information listed so people take action, but not too much that they get overloaded.

Your job is to get leads, not to educate people. There is some overlap but still a big difference.

 

[Fox]

Check out these guys, good page design (Looks ugly but your blue colar clients will love it). Scroll down and you'll see how they handle it.
http://www.jimsplumbing.net.au/plumber-perth/

One of the best ways to handle it I reckon. Remember when designing, design for your clients needs. You may think it would be better suited to go one way but what way do your clients want?

Interesting side tip...

That site has a large video to click about their service. It links to YouTube.
If you click the link you can see it has roughly 400 views and has been live since 10 April 2016. So thats roughly 200 days ago.
If 10% of people click on the video then they are getting roughly 20 visitors a day.
If only 5% of people click then 40 people.

When you talk to person (if you wanted to rebuild that site) you could use that figure to intelligently guess lots of stuff and use it as a strong talking point. That video should have a much higher view count and it points towards people not exploring the website too much.

Maybe not applicable in this case but just one way of investigating a current site to make your first call that much better. If you come out of the gate with lots of facts, insights and ideas they will respond way better.
Do your research before contacting potential jobs, lots of clues on every website to how its currently preforming.

 

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[SunnyDftw]

Haven't posted ITT in a while, but I wanted to update you guys.

My own orthodontist has a website, very very basic, I was considering offering my services to him, but wasn't sure.

Next time I went in, I made my pitch, and it wasn't to difficult to sell him on needing a new website. He actually said he had recently stopped paying for the website because of how bad it was (https://web.archive.org/web/20160325175333/http://www.fillgooddentalcenter.com/)

He was PAYING for that!!

We already had a casual patient/doc friendship, and he's always tried to help me find work when I was in between jobs n shit...so I imagine most times this step(making the pitch) is a bit more difficult.

So I got his e-mail and told him I'd send him a proposal over soon. My issue is, I don't know how much to charge. If I go off the value I'm adding(he's an ortho, so if the website lands him 12 patients a year, that's $36,000~) I feel I could charge ~$1k, which would be ~3% of projected revenue I'm adding to his business.

But on the other hand, I'm a beginner who's just trying to build my portfolio. I've no idea how much he was paying the last guy, but it couldn't have been much I assume. I don't want to shoot too high and lose an easy first gig..

Going to finish typing out the rest of the proposal tonight, and if anyone can give me some insight on pricing I'd appreciate it a$$ well. Also if any of the more experienced guys are open to it, I'd like to run the the final proposal by you before I send it out. Get your thoughts.

Couple extra Qs regarding images in logos...I know a couple local photographers and a couple graphic designers that do logos. Should I get these guys work or just use stock photos, and figure out the logo myself(youtube lol)

Thanks in advance, and thanks again to Fox for this awesome thread.

 

[Born-To-Run]

Haven't posted ITT in a while, but I wanted to update you guys.




Next time I went in, I made my pitch, and it wasn't to difficult to sell him on needing a new website. He actually said he had recently stopped paying for the website because of how bad it was (https://web.archive.org/web/20160325175333/http://www.fillgooddentalcenter.com/)

He was PAYING for that!!

We already had a casual patient/doc friendship, and he's always tried to help me find work when I was in between jobs n shit...so I imagine most times this step(making the pitch) is a bit more difficult.

So I got his e-mail and told him I'd send him a proposal over soon. My issue is, I don't know how much to charge. If I go off the value I'm adding(he's an ortho, so if the website lands him 12 patients a year, that's $36,000~) I feel I could charge ~$1k, which would be ~3% of projected revenue I'm adding to his business.

But on the other hand, I'm a beginner who's just trying to build my portfolio. I've no idea how much he was paying the last guy, but it couldn't have been much I assume. I don't want to shoot too high and lose an easy first gig..

Going to finish typing out the rest of the proposal tonight, and if anyone can give me some insight on pricing I'd appreciate it a$$ well. Also if any of the more experienced guys are open to it, I'd like to run the the final proposal by you before I send it out. Get your thoughts.

Couple extra Qs regarding images in logos...I know a couple local photographers and a couple graphic designers that do logos. Should I get these guys work or just use stock photos, and figure out the logo myself(youtube lol)

Thanks in advance, and thanks again to Fox for this awesome thread.

You can charge him $1000 when the sites done, if he doesn't like he doesn't have to pay, then you go sell it to someone else or use as a portfolio piece. Once you mention the price he may try to negotiate, I doubt he would turn you away. You can also justify it by saying if it pulls in one or two clients you've made your money back.

 

[Fox]

Web Course is going great. Several guys have jobs lined up between 1-4k, other guys starting off free which is great too.
It takes time to get going but everyone is progressing really fast.

It took me 5 months to start seeing any sort of proper income so its nice to watch guys cut that down into weeks.

 

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[Chimp]

Careful not to oversell. My uncle used to have a very successful business that relied on 100% phone sales. He said he handed out fliers once with the prices on them and never got any calls - the reason was the info was already there so people didn't "hook". You only want enough information listed so people take action, but not too much that they get overloaded.

Your job is to get leads, not to educate people. There is some overlap but still a big difference.

Thanks. Seems like its better to get people on the phone as quick as possible and the plumber himself can do the rest.

 

[Born-To-Run]

@Fox are you charging for your skype mentoring program? Either way I'd love to get in on it.

 

[Fox]

*******

Guys here is a direct link to the group...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/foxswebdesign/

*******

 

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[Fox]

@Fox are you charging for your skype mentoring program? Either way I'd love to get in on it.

At the moment I am full and not too sure if I will do more. Maybe early next year I will take a few more students but not certain.

If you want join the group for now or post up here and I will help with whatever I can.

 

[Fox]

Nice free course on web design (same guy as the other course I recommend)...

https://www.udemy.com/web-design-secrets/

Probably a funnel to his main course but will still be some good stuff in here.

 

[Born-To-Run]

@Fox

Do you do anything else for your clients besides redesigning their website? SEO optimization, adwords campaigns etc.

At the moment I'm not offering these services (besides basic SEO). I want my main focus right now to be on purely just redesigning websites and not taking too much on board at once. When things pick up these are things I'm interested in branching into. Just wondering where you find yourself in relation to this.

 

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[Fox]

@Fox

Do you do anything else for your clients besides redesigning their website? SEO optimization, adwords campaigns etc.

At the moment I'm not offering these services (besides basic SEO). I want my main focus right now to be on purely just redesigning websites and not taking too much on board at once. When things pick up these are things I'm interested in branching into. Just wondering where you find yourself in relation to this.

So far I have done some Social Media management and branding. We have talked about adwords but no one has followed through. Usually I find companies that are ranked high on Google already so its not a huge priority for them.

Next year I am going to switch things up a lot, while still following what I have posted on here, so it might become something I do more of. I am going to aim for 20k+ jobs and try step it up quite a bit. Once I finish this language course I will have about 6-7 more productive hours a day so I can focus a lot more.

 

[Fox]

This is what pricing a larger job looks like. You want to give a clear breakdown of where your costs are coming from.

For a job less than 4k it might just be a straight price quote but as you go higher you want to provide more detail. This gives the client an idea of what your work involves (and why its priced as such) and what to expect when its finished.

I use the Freshbooks software for this is which quite good and allows clients to pay online. It does lose a few percent on the Stripe payments though before it reaches your bank account.