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Last year I was living right on an amazing surf spot in Mazatlan, Mexico.
Amazing beaches, lots of sunshine, big waves of the Pacific, great seafood, but...
I ended up working most of the time with only a few days spent fully enjoying where I was.
I’ve done similar things in other destinations. I made excellent money, but looking back I should have enjoyed a way better life balance.
While I have posted a lot about selling/web design on here before I’ve overlooked a lot of other areas with freelancing.
The main thing is that it’s very easy to go the workaholic route when you crack sales and the money is flowing.
Instead of using freelancing strategically it can become an instant cash addiction that clouds your judgement.
I’m guilty of it, and I’ve seen it time and again with other freelancers.
This thread by @Ravens_Shadow really got me thinking and gave me a lot of clarity about how I want my business and myself to grow.
That thread hit me pretty hard.
I spent a lot of time looking at what makes me happiest and quite surprisingly, most of it is time-dependent rather than needing money...
Things like swimming outdoors, travelling and hiking, learning new skills, learning new languages, teaching others, fixing and driving old cars and trucks, building things with my hands, training at the gym, boxing, jujitsu, skydiving, surfing, snowboarding and so on.
It’s something I’ve neglected for way too long "just a few more months and then we switch things up".
I’m gonna fix it starting right now.
In 2020 I’ll restart my web design business – with a twist.
This time around my main focus isn’t on just making money with freelancing. I’m definitely after a lifestyle business.
I admire those of you on here building massive businesses. Looking at my own priorities though, I want to go a different route.
What first attracted me to web design is something I have lost a little over the last year. It can be an amazing business to give you massive freedom in time, travel, and lifestyle.
I want to get that back.
I focused on big sales in the past without showing much about the non-business side of my life. The problem with that is you can get great at sales and then start to see every possible sale as a great choice. You then end up going down a lot of roads that were profitable in the short-term but that didn't build any long term success.
In this thread, I aim to show a full complete picture linking sales with strategy/great life balance.
The business goal a year from now is to be at around 20 larger profitable projects per year, balanced with at least 2 weeks off each month. That puts me in the 100-150k range directly from web design, with half the year to enjoy downtime/work on other projects. I believe this is very doable.
Hopefully a year from now I’ll update this thread with a nice house in the mountains, fun pickup truck, and some cool pastimes. And I would love a German Shepard too!
---
What I will be documenting:
Sales wise I can easily land enough web design clients to do this – I’ve done this before. If you are new to sales though I will show how.
The big challenge (for me) is on the lifestyle side. I got to work on having a better balance and not letting short term profit trump long term personal strategy.
To do this I will have to put in a lot of work upfront to learn new skills and get the right client base. Once it’s up and running, hopefully, it will be very enjoyable to manage.
Also, having this business in place by the end of 2020 will give me a solid base to rely on while building other businesses and having fun with the school (more on that below).
It is not that I want to be doing web design forever - but I still do see it as the right business for now while I build the next thing.
It’s the best time in history to learn or make money online but the global marketplace is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate and thrive in.
For anyone new (or even experienced) it’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information out there.
I hope this thread gives a very clear and valuable roadmap to use to build a profitable but strategic web design/freelance business.
Growing the school
The second reason for doing the above is that it will be a lot of value for the students I help. For those of you who don’t know I also run a web design business school.
To give some context with the school - over the last year, I have really cut back on “the numbers”. I shut down the large free Fb group a while back (around 12k members) and have rearranged the school to be way more personal with the students.
It is crazy to think but running that free FB group was burning up around 4 hours of my time every day and blew my stress levels through the roof.
I got to help a lot of people but it wasn't sustainable or scalable at all once it got past 10,000 people. It has really shown me the crazy personal sacrifice @MJ DeMarco has made to keep these forums as solid as they are. - for years.
With the school, I also took out all the smaller paid courses I was offering and now only work with people in a close group to make sure we all get the best results and stay on track.
This forum and Unscripted was a massive influence on how it’s being run. I want to build a great productocracy with a strong lasting community.
While the school does very well though I don't ever want to become someone who only teaches.
As much as I love helping others with web design, I also love playing the game of business myself.
---
So with all of this in mind, I will be restarting things starting right now.
I’ll show all the steps I take and build real examples and case studies.
While I cannot unlearn what I’ve already learned, I can show exactly how it’s done and have the best teaching content possible.
There is always a little bit of ego with this stuff but I gotta put that aside, get myself back in the mindset of a student, and make another big leap forward.
I am a little nervous but the good kind.
---
That is it for now. The intro above is mostly about my reasons behind the business.
The rest of the thread will be focused on the practical side of learning, selling, getting great results for your clients while building an ideal lifestyle.
What I didn't cover in this thread is WHY my clients should care and how I hope to provide way more value than before - I will get to that soon.
I am very aware that my reasons for restarting this business don't matter to the marketplace! This post is just for you folk - I will share the business strategy side soon.
I hope this becomes a great detailed progress thread but also a great personal guide for anyone willing to start and grow a lifestyle business.
I’ll do my best to show you how to make it work – how to learn the skills you want to build your business upon and get real results.
Since my free Fb group is now gone I will be directing people from my email list and Youtube channel to engage in this thread. If that is you or if you are new and interested in learning about web design then just post up. The more the merrier and it would be great to have a common thread to give others feedback and advice.
I will also post up any relevant Youtube video I make here – to answer any questions that go with it and to track progress.
Also, video production is one of the skills I’m already working on so if you want to feel free to give feedback on the videos themselves too.
I already get my first project lined up so I will be updating about that soon.
Let's go!
Amazing beaches, lots of sunshine, big waves of the Pacific, great seafood, but...
I ended up working most of the time with only a few days spent fully enjoying where I was.
I’ve done similar things in other destinations. I made excellent money, but looking back I should have enjoyed a way better life balance.
While I have posted a lot about selling/web design on here before I’ve overlooked a lot of other areas with freelancing.
The main thing is that it’s very easy to go the workaholic route when you crack sales and the money is flowing.
Instead of using freelancing strategically it can become an instant cash addiction that clouds your judgement.
I’m guilty of it, and I’ve seen it time and again with other freelancers.
This thread by @Ravens_Shadow really got me thinking and gave me a lot of clarity about how I want my business and myself to grow.
That thread hit me pretty hard.
I spent a lot of time looking at what makes me happiest and quite surprisingly, most of it is time-dependent rather than needing money...
Things like swimming outdoors, travelling and hiking, learning new skills, learning new languages, teaching others, fixing and driving old cars and trucks, building things with my hands, training at the gym, boxing, jujitsu, skydiving, surfing, snowboarding and so on.
It’s something I’ve neglected for way too long "just a few more months and then we switch things up".
I’m gonna fix it starting right now.
In 2020 I’ll restart my web design business – with a twist.
This time around my main focus isn’t on just making money with freelancing. I’m definitely after a lifestyle business.
I admire those of you on here building massive businesses. Looking at my own priorities though, I want to go a different route.
What first attracted me to web design is something I have lost a little over the last year. It can be an amazing business to give you massive freedom in time, travel, and lifestyle.
I want to get that back.
I focused on big sales in the past without showing much about the non-business side of my life. The problem with that is you can get great at sales and then start to see every possible sale as a great choice. You then end up going down a lot of roads that were profitable in the short-term but that didn't build any long term success.
In this thread, I aim to show a full complete picture linking sales with strategy/great life balance.
The business goal a year from now is to be at around 20 larger profitable projects per year, balanced with at least 2 weeks off each month. That puts me in the 100-150k range directly from web design, with half the year to enjoy downtime/work on other projects. I believe this is very doable.
Hopefully a year from now I’ll update this thread with a nice house in the mountains, fun pickup truck, and some cool pastimes. And I would love a German Shepard too!
---
What I will be documenting:
- real projects
- actual sales
- my thought process
- the long term plan
- how to stack your skills and scale to different business models
Sales wise I can easily land enough web design clients to do this – I’ve done this before. If you are new to sales though I will show how.
The big challenge (for me) is on the lifestyle side. I got to work on having a better balance and not letting short term profit trump long term personal strategy.
To do this I will have to put in a lot of work upfront to learn new skills and get the right client base. Once it’s up and running, hopefully, it will be very enjoyable to manage.
Also, having this business in place by the end of 2020 will give me a solid base to rely on while building other businesses and having fun with the school (more on that below).
It is not that I want to be doing web design forever - but I still do see it as the right business for now while I build the next thing.
It’s the best time in history to learn or make money online but the global marketplace is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate and thrive in.
For anyone new (or even experienced) it’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information out there.
I hope this thread gives a very clear and valuable roadmap to use to build a profitable but strategic web design/freelance business.
Growing the school
The second reason for doing the above is that it will be a lot of value for the students I help. For those of you who don’t know I also run a web design business school.
To give some context with the school - over the last year, I have really cut back on “the numbers”. I shut down the large free Fb group a while back (around 12k members) and have rearranged the school to be way more personal with the students.
It is crazy to think but running that free FB group was burning up around 4 hours of my time every day and blew my stress levels through the roof.
I got to help a lot of people but it wasn't sustainable or scalable at all once it got past 10,000 people. It has really shown me the crazy personal sacrifice @MJ DeMarco has made to keep these forums as solid as they are. - for years.
With the school, I also took out all the smaller paid courses I was offering and now only work with people in a close group to make sure we all get the best results and stay on track.
This forum and Unscripted was a massive influence on how it’s being run. I want to build a great productocracy with a strong lasting community.
While the school does very well though I don't ever want to become someone who only teaches.
As much as I love helping others with web design, I also love playing the game of business myself.
---
So with all of this in mind, I will be restarting things starting right now.
I’ll show all the steps I take and build real examples and case studies.
While I cannot unlearn what I’ve already learned, I can show exactly how it’s done and have the best teaching content possible.
There is always a little bit of ego with this stuff but I gotta put that aside, get myself back in the mindset of a student, and make another big leap forward.
I am a little nervous but the good kind.
---
That is it for now. The intro above is mostly about my reasons behind the business.
The rest of the thread will be focused on the practical side of learning, selling, getting great results for your clients while building an ideal lifestyle.
What I didn't cover in this thread is WHY my clients should care and how I hope to provide way more value than before - I will get to that soon.
I am very aware that my reasons for restarting this business don't matter to the marketplace! This post is just for you folk - I will share the business strategy side soon.
I hope this becomes a great detailed progress thread but also a great personal guide for anyone willing to start and grow a lifestyle business.
I’ll do my best to show you how to make it work – how to learn the skills you want to build your business upon and get real results.
Since my free Fb group is now gone I will be directing people from my email list and Youtube channel to engage in this thread. If that is you or if you are new and interested in learning about web design then just post up. The more the merrier and it would be great to have a common thread to give others feedback and advice.
I will also post up any relevant Youtube video I make here – to answer any questions that go with it and to track progress.
Also, video production is one of the skills I’m already working on so if you want to feel free to give feedback on the videos themselves too.
I already get my first project lined up so I will be updating about that soon.
Let's go!
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Vjepl zua Guy!
