My Odyssey - Finding Meaning And Achieving Financial Freedom

[Xolorr]

My man you're a F*cking genius and a life saver. Never thought of doing it that way without the metrics.

May you share an example of how you present yourself in these e-mails? I assume you also talk on the video audits? I've got a slight accent but pretty good actually, I'd shit myself on the phone though and probably talk way too slow. I assume on the camera behind the screen it gets a bit easier to talk. Btw, don't know if you can relate to that but in Bulgarian I am the complete opposite - loud, clear and a pretty smooth talker.

Hahahaha you’re gassing me up too much!

it’s definitely a very different type of outreach that takes some time to master, but based off my metrics at 5 per day I book around 6 sales calls per month, which depending on lead quality & my sales results in 1 - 2 clients per month.

in the beginning I was sending 10+ per day, but I couldn’t sustain that output with managing the team and clients, so now I’ve got someone working for me on commission basis with my exact system.

I won’t share one of my examples publicly for obvious reasons, but it goes a bit like this:

- find a list of qualified leads, and find the DM email via LinkedIn/Snov/hunter
- Start recording on their website, introduce myself and give a hook. “I want to show you how you’re missing out on $10k, if not $100k pm in sales”
- quick intro of myself
- audit (compliment) their website, product, reviews, IG, and content
- go to their FB ads library “this is why I was surprised to see that a business of your caliber wasn’t taking full advantage of FB ads”
- change tabs to a google slides which is a quick pitch for the agency (Shopify specialists, 800k+ in adspend, guarantee results)
- show case studies / results from previous clients (proof)
- audit ads (too few ads, copy, creatives, etc.)
- show case studies again and give a CTA “if you re interested in generating results like these, I’d love to book in a quick 15 min call”

and then rinse and repeat that 10x per day.

I think this would probably work great for you with website builds aswell, especially given you have a portfolio.

as I said, don’t giveup the cold calls, but start adding this to your outreach system! You’ll need to write out a 3 - 5x email sequence and store leads in a google sheet / CRM as well so you don’t lose track.

LMK if I missed anything, this was all just off the top of my head while I wait for an uber haha

 

[Simon Angel]

Day 5​

No cold calling today. Why, you may ask? Because I'm a noob.

I met with my client today for the cleanings services project. He's pretty happy with the design and I know he'll have great results from the website, so I'll be asking for referrals from him.. frequently.

Anyways, I did a lot of work on his site today but still felt like I could have cold called, and I did promise myself I'll acquire at least 1 client per week in order to earn a minimum of $2000 per month.

I'll be meeting with him again on Friday and I'll be done with the site by then, in fact I only have about 2 hours left of work to do. That's literally 2 days with a lot of free time.

That means I WILL cold call tomorrow and I will report my results.

June goal: $600/2000

End of Day 5.

 

[Simon Angel]

Thinking about offering results through Google Ads to my past and future clients. I'd like to make use of my extensive Facebook Ads experience and apply it to my current hustle, and besides, a lot of people have been asking me about it over the phone.

I took a peak at Google Ads for the first time last night. As expected, very similar to Facebook Ads, I watched a few videos on keywords and how they work, though I already had an idea.

My plan is to help my cleaning company client run some Google Ads and see if I get him good results (like 5-10x ROI) and then use those results and newfound confidence for future clients.

My only dilemma is whether to ask for payment or just focus on helping him and gaining experience. Perhaps a "1 month free then X amount after we're getting results" sort of thing for him. I'm sure he would be down because he shared how he's sick (high bp, on cancer treatment and etc) and almost broke down while telling me how his dream is to buy a house in the countryside and be at peace with his wife.

Thought he did say he has a problem with "being with just one woman" and confessed he's been very unfaithful to his wife. Regardless, I'd like to help him get there, create a website and add it as a success story along with the ROI, etc to showcase to my future prospects.

@Andy Black Oh, wise one, your advice would be very appreciated. Especially on ad spend and bidding. Nobody is running ads in the city and the area for his niche (I mean, we're in Bulgaria after all but it still rather surprising) so what would be the minimum spend we can do since there's no competition?

Like if he's spending a dollar a day and there's no competition, would his ad be up there for his niche keywords as much as it would be if he's spending $10 or $100?

 

[Phikey]

Nice work mate!! This is action taking right here. I wouldn’t put yourself down too much. You’re miles ahead of most people that want to do what you’re doing.

I remember being in a similar hustling place years ago when I started my own agency too. Hustling like crazy and making as many calls and emails as possible. It was the best feeling hitting that $1k MRR mark, then $2k, then $5k then $10k and after that it just became whatever.

Once you get that network and momentum going it’s gravy.

 

[Paul David]

I do pay per show for my clients - No monthly retainer.

I control the whole process, I run the ads on my own page then i need "clients" to perform treatments for the leads.

I have my own team who follow up with the leads, educate them and book appointments, when they arrive at my clients I get paid.

Easy to sign clients as they don't pay anything up front.

 

[Simon Angel]

Hey Simon, any update on this?

Your last post reads kind of funny in broken English, considering all the previous replies were spot on...I thought that was a bit weird, unless I didn't catch the sarcasm?

Would be great to know if you have made any progress.

Hi @Blackman, currently dealing with a shitty client (Plumber Nr.2). Might not get paid in full, but the odds are I will be.

I spent a lot of time talking to him, his previous web designer, arranging deals between them (which got nothing to do with me) just to make the process more efficient and less daunting for them both. He ended up not fulfilling his part of the deal, while I did and overdid.

The deal was 50% of the payment before beginning our website redesign project, 50% after completion and launch. I did my part, he took a step back and started negotiating like a mad man when I called him:

"Hi, the site has been launched, you've now got A, B, C, I did X so now you'll be getting more Y and Z, etc, etc. As the project is finished, feel free to deposit the remainder of the arranged payment."

- "Ok, so, yeah.. let's wait a week or two and see if there's more visitors to the site than before, more calls, you know?"

"You're saying you want to hold onto the rest of the payment, even though I've fulfilled my end of the deal in full + more, is that right?"

- "No, no, you'll get paid.. let's just wait a little and see.."

"Sorry, that's not how I do business and that wasn't part of our deal. I don't think having our relationship go sour is the way to go right now, so if you would proceed by sending the rest of the money you owe me, we can discuss going the next level and adding PPC ads into the mix."

- "Look, you convinced me over the phone I'll have results, right? So I want to see those results first."

"Yeah, except that wasn't part of our deal. The deal was half the payment before starting the project, the rest after completion and live launch. Which, as you can see, I've followed through with. You're withholding my payment and expect us to continue working together?

- "Bla bla bla, is this amount of money really that a big deal to you, because it's not for me, bla bla bla, I've got clients I've been working for 7-8 months and they've yet to pay me.. etc"

"I don't see how this has anything to do with our deal. You gave me you word, and so did I, you trusted me to get the job done and I did, so I'd like you to pay me today."

*more of the same shitfest for 30 minutes or so*

I don't know if he's sent me the money or not. I told him to call after he does. He said he'll do it today. Hasn't called.

I learned a lot though. I want to say my client is a F*cking idiot, but if we back to the root cause of the problem, it's that I chose him, so it's my fault. I need to find better clients. Like the RE agency where the CEO was very up to date with digital marketing, so I could just speak freely without dumbing down every word that comes out of my mouth and still be misunderstood.

In regards to the RE agency meeting, it did occur. Here's what happened: How To Help This RE Business Owner And Add Vlaue During The C0VlD-19 Recession? (With Details Inside)

I have not cold called much after this. In fact, I've been slacking - spent time with friends, played cards and went to pool parties. I still haven't completed my Google Ads course, but it's probably more of the fact I'm pretty confident with my skills as is (which is just ego talk) rather than being lazy. I'm also in the process of selling my car.

It's been hard. On one hand I want to succeed and be financially independent and free, on the other hand my mother has really bad debt that has to be paid and she won't be able to by herself.. at the same time she's pretty abusive to me and I want to move.

And then there's also my girl - let's go here, let's go there. I sometimes get aches and pains due to the stress and It gets overwhelming but I'm not backing down and will learn to manage this.

The goal I've set at the moment is finding E-commerce clients as that's where I come from and I feel confident I can help business owners scale their stores from let's say 4 figures a month to 5, 6 and even 7. @Phikey has lead the way and opened the door for me to do so with his knowledge and insight - he is probably one of the highest earners in the forum and has spent a decent amount of his time helping me, a random guy.

Anyways, I haven't been able to sleep well lately - having weird dreams or all-out nightmares, grinding my teeth a lot. The grinding ended up being the cause of my previously unexplained vertigo and ear fluttering. I drink lemon balm tea before bed to ease the nerves.

What about you?

 

[Xolorr]

Wow, I really appreciate you coming along and writing this. You're exactly right about transferring over to the US market and the exchange rate, I've been having a really hard time recently as I got physical symptoms from the stress of cold calling + worrying about the future and I got angry at first because my body let me down just as I was getting traction again, but I realized it's not my body, it's my mind. I believe I am on the mend but I was constantly anxious about the fact that to make my dreams of financial independence come true I have to go through some stress - which makes my health worse (inflammation). I was getting ready to cold call today but I realized staying alive and dealing with my issues now is more important than pressing on, which I've been known to do in the past.

I feel like you doing audits via cold email sounds great and I wouldn't have thought you could get a whole lot of clients this way, and with the added fact that you get paid in dollars, which also seems incredibly cheap for them is awesome. Could you explain the whole process a bit more? For you to do audits I assume you've contacted them before and got access to their ad managers? This info is like a bright light at the end of the tunnel, which often seemed like there is no end.



Congratulations man! I can only imagine, but I'd be happy to give all of my money away to just even be calm and happy and having the bills and food paid while not working for someone else. That's all I want, anything else I make or do is just the cherry on top.

Hahaha, man I’m glad I was able to make an impact!

No so I actually do video audits on cold/no contact. You can publicly view any ads any Facebook page is running via page transparency > Facebook ads library. So although I can’t view the metrics/data, just from the ads their running I can get a general idea if they know what they’re doing or not.

for video audits I use loom, I seem to remember reading a thread on here of a very similar method by someone else.

then just make sure to find the Decision makers email (a bunch of softwares for this) as well as LinkedIn, etc. and send it out!

same amount of effort as getting local clients with 2-5x the returns.

 

[Simon Angel]

Just a quick note about having a job - there's nothing wrong with working full-time, while you're trying to make progress business-wise.

Yes, obviously your time will be limited and you won't have as much energy after doing your shift, but you will have more disposable income, no hassle from your family and you could find a job that you'll enjoy doing...

If you're working for someone else, it doesn't automatically mean that you're going through torture every day - find something that you enjoy doing, get paid for it and do business on the side until you get to a point, where you can justify leaving your job and spend the extra time/energy on scaling the business.

There's nothing wrong with having a full time job for you, but for me it's not an option. I either go all in with 1 thing or I don't bother.

People's mentality here is way behind. Would you put up with some chav from the outskirts of Manchester pushing you into not only doing your job, but squeezing every last bit of work from you and criminally underpaying you?

Because that's the reality here in Bulgaria, except we get paid 7x worse than you.

Average annual salary in England: £35 000 = 75, 666 BGN
Average annual salary in Bulgaria: 12 000 BGN = £5,500

Fun fact: I've been to the UK a couple times these past few years and your food & bills cost less than ours AFTER currency conversion.

 

[Simon Angel]

Big poopy.​

Feeling tired and underwhelmed after sending more than 600 emails. 2/3 of that is follow ups. As it stands I've sent all 600 emails manually and they were all personalized and catered to the prospects.

I haven't even gotten so much as a sales call, even though my last 70-80 emails have had a 70% open rate and 5-10% reply rate.

Most replies have been positive but it's always the same thing - how they already have someone running their ads for them and/or they're contracted by a marketing agency.

I'm going to send 50 more the next few days to prospects who have no ads running at all (so far I've focused on brands running 1 to 10 ads) and see what happens. By the way, I've no problem doing this every day for years, it's just tiring not having any tangible results after working my a$$ off for a month.

Anyway..​

I joined BGF1 after one of the fastest racers in my country (he was a local F1 prospect) saw potential in me and my driving and referred me to the league. It's an online organization that hosts league racers in numerous racing simulators, and the guys are crazy fast.

I came in super confident and got my a$$ handed to me. However, I've already made friends there and after just a few days of practice I have reached the fast guys' race pace! I'm really happy about that and in this short period of time I joined a team and have an upcoming F1 league race on 13th September which will be streamed and commentated live. I've got so many friends hyped up about it as well who'll be watching me race.

Due to my grotesque financial situation I'm feeling really guilty about spending 2-3 hours per day practicing for this. It's literally all for glory and it's unlikely I'll ever earn money from it, no matter how good I am or get. But love racing and I barely get any joy out of doing anything else.

I'm going to skip going out tonight and send some more emails.

 

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[Simon Angel]

Just booked my first sales call after receiving an enthusiastic reply!

Pretty sure I'm going to F*ck it up some way or another, and it would still be worth it because now I know my process "kinda" works. But if not, then I might have my very first client soon. Woohoo!

 

[Simon Angel]

Got a sales call set up for an hour from now. I've never used Google Meet before, nor have I ever had a sales call with an American (only Bulgarians until this point).

I'm feeling a bit tense but looking forward to it nontheless!

 

[Simon Angel]

No-show again. Waited for about an hour, knowing full well that my self-worth diminished by the minute.

Obviously since I have 0 clients I can afford to eat shit and after receiving another "Sorry, didn't get the notification" email we've scheduled a third attempt at a meeting (that's right, third).

At this point I'm 99% certain that after meeting and sharing my strategy with her they'll be on board with it. But I never imagined getting to the actual meeting itself would be so difficult for a prospect. Jesus..

I'm still sending emails every day, still getting quite a bit of responses. I've only been doing this for about a month and I knew nothing about email marketing, so even though I'm still waddling in a puddle of shit at least I'm getting meetings now.

 

[Simon Angel]

After another dreadful day of manual cold emailing I get the sweetest notification there is - another booked sales call!

That makes 2 calls booked this week and my booking rate just shot up significantly but how much exactly - not sure, I can't be arsed to calculate that shit right now!

I'd like to thank all my fans, the Law of Attraction and NoFap for this exciting breakthrough!

And let's be real here, I wouldn't have booked 2 calls this week if it weren't for my future wedding best men @Phikey & @Xolorr. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to change my life, it's time to get this thing rolling.

 

[Zyanwc]

Day 4

SECOND DEAL CLOSED! (well, probably)
​

No cold calling today. Had to meet up with a potential buyer for my car, it went well and I'm probably selling my car tomorrow (have no need for it, it's weighing me down). Also went to the dentist and worked on client's site.

I did, however, follow up with a prospect. It went something like this:

"Hey N, It's Simeon from Nowhere, I'm calling to ask whether you've made a decision regarding your website"

- "Hey man, yeah, I have, I want to get it done and I'll get to it soon, just been busy these past few days as a lot of my colleagues are not working and I have to do double the work"

"Oh that's rough, I understand. I just wanted to check up on you since I assumed you were busy.

- "Yes and I appreciate it, we'll talk soon"

"Have a great day!"

-"Thanks, you too!"

Until I see upfront payment I remain a bit skeptical, but we've been talking with this guy for 2 weeks now, so it should be good.

If all things go well, I'm at 1200/2000 of my monthly goal and it's just June (yes, I will count the sale from yesterday as I am yet to be paid in full).

Feels great!

And on top of that one of my past clients called (plumber) for some help with his logo. I helped him and he said:

"Thanks, by the way, I've got a friend that's opening a massage studio. She needs a site and I'll send her to you."

Which means, hypothetically, I might soon reach my goal just a few days/week in the month of June.

I love this! I wonder if I am just lucky.

P.S I've learned almost everything from @Fox and I began taking action thanks to @Sean Marshall's thread on starting a digital marketing agency. Thanks guys for all the free value, couldn't/wouldn't have done it without you two.

Man I just love you’re enthusiasm and your work ethic. I think we’re around the same age (I’m 19), and man you and your story are really inspiring me to take action!

 

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[Odysseus M Jones]

That means I WILL cold call tomorrow and I will report my results.

June goal: $600/2000

End of Day 5.

Man I just love you’re enthusiasm and your work ethic.

Is it just me or are we missing updates for days 6, 7 & 8?

Before anyone jumps down my neck, I quote the OP

If that's not the case, then sorry, but I say it how I see it.

Gotta keep these youngsters accountable

 

[Odysseus M Jones]

Hey, thanks. It really depends how muture of an 19 year old you are. 19 to 22 felt like 10 years worth of growth for me due to what I went through. I'm glad that I've inspired you and yes, you should take action today.



Thanks brat, I'll be sure to check out what you do!



It's certainly interesting to have this disease. Unhinged and neurotic people seem to suffer the worst outcomes (myself included) and I really was at death's door at one point. Fortunately my soul snapped and I realigned myself back on my path again, almost as if I entered some other frequency here on Earth. I'll refrain from going too metaphysical here for now.



Blaise Brosnan is a wise man.

Pierce Brosnan is cool too.



I have bad news, guys..

There were no updates for days 6, 7 and 8.

Now before you are shocked and disgusted by my presumed action faking allow me to explain. I was busy with my client and making sure he is 120% happy, since the guy has good connections with a leading construction company in my city. And yes, they do need a website redesign and fresh SEO.

And I would LOVE to help a construction company get more leads and deals and for me to acquire precious knowledge of the industry to leverage in the future.

I made about 6-7 cold calls per day for the last few days, equaling a total of 20 calls. Womp womp.

TOP SECRET STORY BELOW!​

Alright so I was walking towards my apartment block at 12:30 AM after escorting my dear girlfriend to hers, which I do every single night because she's as precious to me as The One Ring to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, I suddenly felt buzzing and was greeted by an almost-blinding bright light coming from the sky.

Suddenly, I was being abducted by aliens.

"No.." I said, remembering I promised myself and my girl to cold call 25 businesses tomorrow.

"..You can't do this!"

Anyways, they beamed me up and I was greeted by their Lord Commander.

Guess who?

Jordan motherf@#%ing Belfort! Yep, the Wolf of Wall Street is also the Vortigaunt of Nibiru-B17.

"Lol" he exclaimed. "Who the f@#k is this guy?".

- "Wtf dude" I uttered.

"Alright I know it's a lot process. Here's what we're gonna do. I'll tell you a riddle and you have to guess the missing words. If you answer correctly I'll share you my secret of cold calling success."

I was intrigued.

"Are you ready?" Belfort impatiently asked.

- "Sure".

"Roses are red, violets are blue. There's 2 type of people - buyers and non-buyers for you.

Seek out the buyers, leave the non-buyers alone, or else you're an idiot just like _ _ _ _ _ _ _"

- "Cardone".

Jordan Belfort's eyes widened

"At long last! You have finally come. Here, take this and get the f@#k out of here!"

- "Thanks Mr. Belfort"

And so I did.

And now without further ado, the secret Jordan Belfort shared with me:

"You, yes you.

Make 140 cold calls a week.

40 of those calls will be with the decision maker.

Of those 40 times you will close 8 meetings.

Of those 8 meetings 6 will be held.

From those 6 meetings, you will make 2 sales"


...........................

2 sales per week? That's 8 a month.. with a minimum price of $600 per website, that's $4800 per month, 2.5x more than my monthly goal for financial freedom!?

Deep smolder into the distance as the Sun lowers into the horizon to mark the end of the day

I understand what needs to be done. And I'm going to do it, Jordan.

Stay tuned!

On the 5th abduction you get a t-shirt.
Mars is really nice this time of year...

 

[Simon Angel]

Day 13
​

Didn't call anyone, was with my girlfriend.

Started looking up places to rent. Found some good deals, now I have to be earning the money.

Wrote down 17 cleaning companies' websites and phones. Will call ALL of them tomorrow.

It's Friday tomorrow. Can't have this week go to waste, I'm getting my second client for the month!

See you tomorrow.

 

[Simon Angel]

You could pay the bill, or they could. They’re different business models. I personally prefer the client to pay the bill direct to Google. It’s more transparent for them, and less risk of me being left holding the baby if they do a runner.

Create an account per client, and an MCC to manage all the accounts.

That cleared billing up for me, thanks a lot. Might be a dumb question but what is an MCC?

EDIT: Apparently googling "MCC google ads" turns up quite a few results. Turns out it really was a dumb question.

 

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[Simon Angel]

@Phikey Thank you for this goldmine of information man! I'm going to consume all of it.

Really, thanks a lot.. I want to be like you when I grow up.

I noticed you've been focusing on growing your YouTube channel lately and while I can't give you any advice about that I wish all the best to you.

Going to tag you when I hit $1K MMR!

EDIT: I can't imagine having to charge clients $500 and that being 10-20% of the ad budget though.. I'm running a $10 per day ad for one of my clients with a $5 bid and there's virtually 0 competition and it's spending like $1 a day for 5-6 clicks. That's $30 a month.. I'd have to charge them $3. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Andy Black]

At that point I was doing Google Ads and Website design for Local Services Companies.
I'd been doing this stuff for a while and had closed website deals between $2-$15k each but I hit a point where my income dried up because I wasn't closing consistent sales. This was while I was living abroad/travelling in Colombia and I really had to light a candle under my butt and hustle otherwise I'd have to move back home (and I was loving the digital nomad life). So I moved to Ecuador to force myself to be somewhere cold (Quito) and to stop partying and just knuckle down and build my agency properly.

I stuck to just google Ads as the service until I hit $11k MRR and then realised I liked my Ecommerce clients much more, I had a real knack for growing them consistently, and they had way more potential to scale (and my fee scale with them). It was frustrating for me to keep working with cleaning companies that were limited by geographic location or had staffing issues. At the start I did my first campaign for free (like you are) and I learned a lot. That guy is still a client of my agency 4 years later and he's now doing $400k+ monthly sales for his store. The first clients were $500 each or so but as I grew I'd raise my prices depending on the size of the client. Generally 10% of ad spend is pretty normal (some charge up to 20% of ad spend, depending on the industry).

Here's my strategy that worked insanely well back then and would work really well right now for you today too:

• Go into Facebook groups for your niche (I did it for cleaning companies) and contribute and become a known helper in that niche for Google Ads. You just want to answer questions and help where you can (don't ask for anything, just give as much value as possible)
• When people post about having any problems with their advertising, offer them a free google ads audit but on the condition that you can post it back in the group as a comment.
• I did this 5-10 times and it generated leads for months to come. I still get leads from it years later and I turn them down every month because I only work with Ecommerce now.
• What happens after you do that is that you're providing insane value to one person, and dozens of others will get value from that video too
• After 3 videos, once anyone asked a question about google ads, 3-5 people would immediately tag me and say I was the expert and I had immediate social proof
• This meant that my sales calls were never sales calls anymore. It was just negotiating on price to fit their budget.

Here are some of the videos I made (I still have some on my youtube channel as unlisted videos):

(Back when the old Google Ads layout was "Adwords")

I'm now executing a similar strategy for my Youtube channel but instead of in Facebook groups I'm trying to help the whole world of Ecommerce store owners. Same principle: give everything away for free, show people you can help them, and a small percentage will actually need your help.
Here's my channel with Ecommerce Tutorials so you can see this strategy in action now.

Love this. Be seen to help people with XYZ and then they start tagging you as The XYZ Guy. Well done @Phikey. I love that you’re going bigger with it and hitting YouTube now as well.

 

[Simon Angel]

Here's a conversation I had with @Phikey over PM:​

Hey Phikey,

I've been really pondering over what you said about charging $500 minimum and I was wondering who could REALLY benefit from spending 4 figures for ads + services per month.

Cleaning companies? Really low volume of searches here for most keywords in Bulgaria especially for my city, except for the capital city - Sofia.

Construction companies? Same issue.

However, I looked up "apartments for sale *my city*" and "real estate *my city*" and there's thousands of searches per month! Okay, perhaps I am up to something.

Then I checked out the first page results. 1 single top result ad from a real estate company that's nation-wide and 1 bottom result on the second page, again nation-wide.

But then on the second page I also found a real estate company that sell only locally. Lots of apartments and houses for sale inside, pretty decent website though not doing well SEO-wise since. No ads.

I'm going to contact them. But I wonder how should I handle the first interaction and more importantly the follow up call and meeting. I'm currently playing it out in my head like this:

"Hi X company, this is Simeon calling from *our city*.

I was doing research on the volume of real estate search terms locally in Google and found that there's only two competing companies that are spending very little but sitting comfortably in the first few results, followed by other nation-wide companies *stating which companies exactly* with very good SEO.

I noticed you only do business locally, however you're on the second page in Google and it looks like you're not running any ads. There is a lot of potential in running such ads as there's a high volume of monthly searches related to your business and most potential clients would only take a look at the first few results in Google before contacting a company. When executed well it could lead to much more business and thanks to the affordable nature of pay per click ads, very high ROI.

Would you be interested in meeting up to discuss this further?"

Then when we hypothetically meet my selling point would be something like this (example):

"Let's say the ads get you one additional sale per month. Let's say it's the lowest priced home you have - a one-room apartment. How much would you normally profit off such a sale?"

- "Around $20 000"

"Would you consider investing $2000 per month (1/10) for a $20 000 profit sale as a good investment?" (I'm going to be honest Phikey , the budget probably won't exceed $100-300 per month).

- "Yep, sure"

*other logistics + deal closed*"

What do you think? I'm really excited about contacting them but I want to make sure my approach is right.

Thank you so much in advance. My head has been spinning since yesterday when you posted in my thread."

His response was that my approach fine and that he has used this same approach.

Then the next day:

I found the boss of the brokerage today, pitched him rather quickly (but lead a discussion, not just like that) and his response was:

"I'm currently out of town and will be back on Monday, I also have to talk about this with my colleagues so let's talk then if you want." (I didn't really try to sell him anything, just lead the discussion towards how there's a big opportunity in the local RE market that they could capitalize on)"

- "Yeah, and we could also meet on Monday"

"Yeah, we can, gotta go!"

- "Bye for now*

" Bye"

I'm glad I managed to plant the seed and will follow up to push for a meeting on Monday! I'm confident I can close once we meet.

I'm pretty excited about this.

I went to the 24/7 store yesterday evening after having a pizza and beer at my girlfriend's and whilst I was walking I saw a car with another local RE brokerage's branding on it.

I got my phone and checked them out right away and.. no ads, bad SEO. I've got some options now!

Will update you all on Monday!

 

[Simon Angel]

Not to detract from @Odysseus M Jones's wit however I finished calling all but one of the 8 agencies I had written down today and managed to arrange a total of 4 meetings with the decision makers. One of them is tomorrow!

I am both excited and surprised at the same time.

The reason I didn't call the 8th one is because we're a fairly small city and if I can close 1 to 2 deals from these 4 meetings that would be great.. but if I run campaigns for 3 or more clients that are all competing with eachother in the same industry and in the same city then I'd be going full Machiavelli.

 

[Simon Angel]

Update:
​

I had the weird ear fluttering and vertigo for two days in a row. Woke up next to my girlfriend this morning, and what do you know, it was there again. I used my extremely high IQ and noticed a pattern:

I woke up a good 10 times that night because it was hot. For the majority of the night I laid on my left side (the right ear is problematic). I was fine. Even at 4 AM I was fine.

Around 7 AM, however, I wasn't. It was back. But I was laying on my right side. I got severely pissed off and laid on my left and told myself "this is the sole reason". Suprisingly, I woke up at 8 with no vertigo and no fluttering. Yeah, I don't know either.

Anyway..​

Of the 2 meetings that I was supposed to go on Wednesday, the prospect with whom we rescheduled to meet on the next day said he's too busy and travelling to whatever place again.

I proposed we reschedule again for another day this week. He cut me off and said he has my contact info and will call when he's free, in a rather irritable tone. Which means "F*ck off kid, I'm not interested anymore lol". That's fine, can't have them all.

Then I called Prospect Nr. 2 and as you may have already guessed, he was also too busy.

We rescheduled for the next day as well (Thursday) at a cafe at 11 AM. I followed up with him at around 10 AM today to make sure our arrangement is still on and he confirmed he'll be there "At 11 AM. But it could be 11-something too".

- "Sure, let me know 15-20 minutes in advance"

"Ok, deal".

I waited until 11 at first. No call.

At around 11:10 I began walking towards the cafe just to make sure in case he forgets to let me know in advance (15-20 minutes from my apartment, it was 35 C and I wore jeans and a shirt, sweatier than an a$$ crack) and in an effort to be close to the cafe when he calls me but without spending money on a taxi (I am.. quite broke) and I got there at around 11:30. Still no call.

I wrote him a text that I'm currently in the area near the cafe.. no reply, no call-back.

I went inside and ordered a water.

40 minutes later - he was a no-show. Disappointing and disrespectful, I guess. I left a tip for the waitress and walked back home, still sweating profusely.

At this point I've told myself I MUST find and help a real estate agency just to spite those that have turned me down.

I want to help their "meh competition" become a real problem for them.

But wait, there's more..
​

I ultimately decided not to work the insurance job my girl's father offered me. I felt it would take too much of my time and I wanted to pursue this instead.

Yeah, getting ghosted on a meeting.

And probably the most concerning of all - some of my friends have been diagnosed with C0VlD-19. I've been in close contact, and I'm worrying for everyone, including myself like a mom.

Doubt, depression and dread are creeping up on my psyche. I have to pick up the phone tomorrow and call again though, I really don't have a choice since I declined the job and I'm broke + passively in debt due to my mother's loans. Maybe I'm an idiot.

And my a**hole mind keeps coming up with these worst-case scenarios and flooding my thought processes with them.

I don't want to sound like a wuss, but I have no psychological support here at home and I've been known to worry myself to the point of getting sick. In fact, a big reason I want to move so badly is because my mental health is deteriorating here at home. I'm remaining stoic for the most part, though.

Until next time..

 

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[Joxsten]

Thank you for a much valuable thread @Simon Angel!
I’m also in the stages of starting my webdesign business, but still looking for my first client.
I thought i was taking consistent action, and primarily doing cold emails without much results. Your thread and sharing of your process have given me a kick in the right direction, and I’ll begin to do cold calls instead on a consistent basis. So again, thank you for sharing!

A quick question: Do you have a system for all the prospecting you do? A system which helps you keep track of who you’ve contacted, and when to follow up?

 

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[Joxsten]

Oh dude, 8 posts & still parked, they're cruel here too.
You see here likes are currency & they're stingy with them even though they're free to give.
Unless you're an epic legendary then your followers like anything you post.
That's more about the fanboy culture though.

Ha! Thank you for the moral support and the likes. If likes is currency here, i just have to be more valuable and contributive!

 

[Phikey]

Hi @Blackman, currently dealing with a shitty client (Plumber Nr.2). Might not get paid in full, but the odds are I will be.

I spent a lot of time talking to him, his previous web designer, arranging deals between them (which got nothing to do with me) just to make the process more efficient and less daunting for them both. He ended up not fulfilling his part of the deal, while I did and overdid.

The deal was 50% of the payment before beginning our website redesign project, 50% after completion and launch. I did my part, he took a step back and started negotiating like a mad man when I called him:

"Hi, the site has been launched, you've now got A, B, C, I did X so now you'll be getting more Y and Z, etc, etc. As the project is finished, feel free to deposit the remainder of the arranged payment."

- "Ok, so, yeah.. let's wait a week or two and see if there's more visitors to the site than before, more calls, you know?"

"You're saying you want to hold onto the rest of the payment, even though I've fulfilled my end of the deal in full + more, is that right?"

- "No, no, you'll get paid.. let's just wait a little and see.."

"Sorry, that's not how I do business and that wasn't part of our deal. I don't think having our relationship go sour is the way to go right now, so if you would proceed by sending the rest of the money you owe me, we can discuss going the next level and adding PPC ads into the mix."

- "Look, you convinced me over the phone I'll have results, right? So I want to see those results first."

"Yeah, except that wasn't part of our deal. The deal was half the payment before starting the project, the rest after completion and live launch. Which, as you can see, I've followed through with. You're withholding my payment and expect us to continue working together?

- "Bla bla bla, is this amount of money really that a big deal to you, because it's not for me, bla bla bla, I've got clients I've been working for 7-8 months and they've yet to pay me.. etc"

"I don't see how this has anything to do with our deal. You gave me you word, and so did I, you trusted me to get the job done and I did, so I'd like you to pay me today."

*more of the same shitfest for 30 minutes or so*

I don't know if he's sent me the money or not. I told him to call after he does. He said he'll do it today. Hasn't called.

I learned a lot though. I want to say my client is a F*cking idiot, but if we back to the root cause of the problem, it's that I chose him, so it's my fault. I need to find better clients. Like the RE agency where the CEO was very up to date with digital marketing, so I could just speak freely without dumbing down every word that comes out of my mouth and still be misunderstood.

In regards to the RE agency meeting, it did occur. Here's what happened: How To Help This RE Business Owner And Add Vlaue During The C0VlD-19 Recession? (With Details Inside)

I have not cold called much after this. In fact, I've been slacking - spent time with friends, played cards and went to pool parties. I still haven't completed my Google Ads course, but it's probably more of the fact I'm pretty confident with my skills as is (which is just ego talk) rather than being lazy. I'm also in the process of selling my car.

It's been hard. On one hand I want to succeed and be financially independent and free, on the other hand my mother has really bad debt that has to be paid and she won't be able to by herself.. at the same time she's pretty abusive to me and I want to move.

And then there's also my girl - let's go here, let's go there. I sometimes get aches and pains due to the stress and It gets overwhelming but I'm not backing down and will learn to manage this.

The goal I've set at the moment is finding E-commerce clients as that's where I come from and I feel confident I can help business owners scale their stores from let's say 4 figures a month to 5, 6 and even 7. @Phikey has lead the way and opened the door for me to do so with his knowledge and insight - he is probably one of the highest earners in the forum and has spent a decent amount of his time helping me, a random guy.

Anyways, I haven't been able to sleep well lately - having weird dreams or all-out nightmares, grinding my teeth a lot. The grinding ended up being the cause of my previously unexplained vertigo and ear fluttering. I drink lemon balm tea before bed to ease the nerves.

What about you?

@Simon Angel some things I would recommend here:

• You’ll get better and better at vetting your clients. You’ll start to get spidey-senses for when a client says something on the sales call that’s a red flag and you’ll decide not to work with them. I noticed myself doing this after 6-12 months in the services game. It takes some burns to develop this.
• You can also protect yourself as much as possible and retain reasonable control of your work. You get paid the final 50% on completion but YOU don’t push the site live until that final 50% is paid. You put in your contract that the site is owned by you until that final payment is made and lands in your account. Only then does the client receive the benefits of the site. How can you do this? You can build it on your own hosting and only push it over once paid. The client can view it but it will be behind a password protected wall. If you need to build it on their hosting then you can password protect it too - make it so that only you have access to the staging.

Also, watch this video:

This video should be mandatory viewing for all services business owners.. every 3-6 months.

 

[Xolorr]

Some quick maffs..​

To lead the lifestyle described above I'd need at least $2000 month (again, not actual dollars, we use a different currency here).

Why $2000?

Food: $300
Bills: $50-60
Small apartment: $200-400
Supplements/other minor expenses: $100-200 (but let's say it's even higher than that)
Total monthly expenditure: Comfortably below $1000

I would then have $1000 left to reinvest in my business, save for a vacation, help pay my mother's debts, etc.

$2000 a month is 2 medium priced or 3-4 smaller priced websites (for my current mediocre sales level). That's..easily doable if I cold call enough.

Quick input here, I haven't finished reading through the entire thread, but I wanted to ask if you've thought about reaching out to businesses in the USA or UK?

The reason I say this is because we're in similar situations geographically and work-wise.

I'm in South Africa, where the exchange rate is R17 to $1. I see in Bulgaria the exchange rate is around 1.7 to $1.

IMO it's good to use this to your advantage, because via zoom/skype you can work with clients anywhere in the world, and US based businesses will have a lot more to spend on websites than Bulgarian businesses.

Just as an example, I run a marketing agency doing around $5-$7k per month now (which equates to R100 000 per month). I would never be able to charge what I charge to local brands because they just don't have that type of capital to invest, whereas my US clients have told me I'm the cheapest service provider they work with, where in my eyes because of the currency conversion I feel like I'm charging a lot.

Just a thought for you, but doing 1 website for a US client could be worth 2 - 3 clients in Bulgaria.

I get all my clients through video audits via cold email, but if you just got a skype sub you could cold call to the US as well!

Keep killing it!

I just moved into my own apartment and it's definitely helped with work and focus, once you get over the ego boost of having a cool place and then realise you need to make the payments every month.

 

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[Simon Angel]

@Xolorr And everyone else that may give a F*ck, I've decided to scout for some clients this evening and record at least 1 "decent" video where I audit an ecommerce billionaire playboy's store + ads after which I am going to send it to them. I'm pretty good with ads and ad creative and I know how to effectively scale (not that impressive, most people do well in that regard) but my biggest strength lies in optimizing stores for a higher conversion rate. I hardly ever see stores that have covered all of the basics, let alone "perfect" examples, so I've got a lot to talk about and points to go through in these audits.

As soon as I send it to the prospect I'll pm you the vid @Xolorr and if it's not too cringy (for me) I'll share it here too.

Thanks for giving me actionable insight there, buddy friend! #BigDickEnergy

 

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[Simon Angel]

Day 420
​

Finally doing stuff again.

Thanks to my main dudes @Phikey, @Xolorr and @TCMorgan who are constantly pointing me in the right direction I've been honing my English-speaking skills and sending email audits to e-commerce store owners. It's like learning to cold call all over again, in a different language too!

I first started out 4-5 days ago making 10+ minute videos (lol) with no camera, speaking very, very slowly and sounding like I've just ate some of Joe Rogan's edibles and got stoned off the face of the Earth.

Also had to edit the video audits heavily to cut out "uhhhs" and due to not having the best technology at my disposal, record the screen with Loom and the facecam + audio from my phone, then edit them into one in Adobe Premiere Pro. It took ages.. like 2 hours with all the F*cks up + my retarded editing skills.

Glad to say I've been learning fast (I hope so, at least) and today marks my biggest effort to date - It's just about lunch time here and I've already sent out 5 email audits to e-com store owners! I feel like I can definitely send 5 more until dinner. In the days before today I sent out a whopping 2 emails and scrapped 1 because I was too embarrassed.

What have I improved on so far?

Well the biggest one was just getting straight to the point i.e "you're losing sales, here's why and what you can do about it", making the videos about 3 minutes long with Loom and I bought a cheapo camera and used my old, ultra-garbage usb mic (added cotton over it for sound padding lol).

So now I just record all 3 channels at once - screen, my face and my voice and just send the link to my prospects. Much more time efficient and though I haven't had any results yet (except that I'm getting a lot of email opens with my email tracking) I feel really good about taking action again.

I'm still not sure if I am convincing enough in my email audits. I try to add value and make the business owners aware of the fact they're leaving a lot of money on the table to their competitors, but I don't show results at the end (I do talk about results though) and I present myself as a "sole advertiser" rather than an agency. I also tend to fumble my words at times but I always feel like I'm doing a better job than yesterday.

Until next time.

 

[Simon Angel]

Girlfriend took me karting a few days ago for the first time, a dream come true and one of the best days of my life so far in terms of the perspective it gave me.

I spent only 16 minutes on the track and managed to put in 16 laps, the track worker smiled at me and said "You sure this is your first time?" as I was not too far off professional times.

I've been wanting to do this since I was 4 and glued to the TV screen while F1 legends like Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen, Reubens Barrichello, Fernando Alonso, Juan Pablo Montoya and etc were going at it in what was considered the best era of F1. Unfortunately I grew up with divorced parents, and even though F1 was bonding time with my father he was a narcissist who mostly gloated how he could've been an F1 driver if he had the money.

I remember telling him "I want to become an F1 driver!" when I was 5 and his reply was that it's not possible since it costs a lot of money and only the biggest talents go there. He then said they start karting at a very young age, so I asked him to take me karting.

"Sure". Never happened though, but he has gone many times by himself and still goes.

I'm 22 and my chances of ever getting close to F3-F2, let alone F1 are extremely slim. But they are there. Apart from the lack of funding the biggest issue is that all F1 drivers began karting between 3 to 10 years old. I didn't get that opportunity, but I'm no less determined to achieve this.

As far as I'm aware I only have 1 life and 1 chance and I'm still young (though considered a lost cause considering how "old" I started).

My goal is to build a business that's bringing in 6 figures a year so I can fund my karting and eventually top tier motorsports career. I have the plan laid out:

1. Build a 6 figure business.
2. Race the karting tracks all day, every day and set the track record for all Bulgarian tracks.
3. Partake in the annual Red Bull Karting Championship in Bulgaria and win it. Winners get an invitation to test out a Formula 4 car at Red Bull Ring in Austria.
4. Test and impress in the F4 car and get offered a contract for F3 (the more money I have, the more likely I'll get a seat, realistically need around 100K).
5. Win the F3 championship. Negotiate sponsporships and get promoted to F2.
6. Place in the top 3 in the F2 championship, have to have scaled my business to 7 figures by now.
7. Get offered an F1 contract in a smaller, struggling team. Negotiate more sponsorships + self-fund.
8. Achieve my dream.

I'm going back to sending emails now. I've been sending 10-20 highly personalized ones to qualified leads every day, I've lost count by now how many I've sent exactly and I don't really have any results to rave about but I'm going to press on.