Bloomer 2.0, hopefully a little less late this time

[Late Bloomer]

I've now learned enough from my time on the forum, to now have a revised plan of action for execution on a weekly basis.

Thanks again, MJ, for your own depth of insight and compelling writing in superb books that attracted this amazing community.

I thank eliquid for his amazing Software as a Service series and especially for his podcasts. Podcast #9 on values, mission, and priorities, is extremely helpful and well worth my listening to more than once, as recommended. #10 on the importance of having the right ideas also helps a lot. Thanks, Jason!

I thank SinisterLex for the superb information demonstrating how to use the gig sites for immediate income. Thanks, Lex! As the dating phrase goes, "It's not you, it's me." I was eventually able to put into words my concerns about how, despite the initial appeal, this path might not be the right choice for me at this time.

Thinking about Jason's podcast applies to my own values and mission, I realized that I want to do work now that can lead directly on to a scalable Fastlane business. One where I'm a leader, who sets vision and goals, and who can delegate and automate more of the implementation over time.

I see clearly how Web design that I market and sell through my own site, where I'm sales rep, coder, chief cook and bottle washer, can lead directly onwards to a scalable Web and marketing agency that also incorporates much of Andy Black's guidance in the plan. Thanks, Andy, for so generously sharing your Adwords experience and personable sales approach!

On Upwork or Fiverr, however, my ceiling is my personal time-for-dollars capacity, with the gig site taking over control of my marketing and financial arrangements. Then the next ceiling up is becoming a "job shop" type of agency, either legitimately as a personnel contracting service, or deceptively by selling my personal work history but flipping the work I pretend to personally do. Those are not options that play to my greatest strengths with highest economic potential.

Joining a SaaS discussion group that's hosted by another forum member here, and that includes some Fastlane-compatible people from outside the forum, is helpful. From our three-continents conference call and Slack discussion group, I've seen how truly transferable my skills and way of thinking can be, beyond what I'd previously imagined. It was also great to share some laughs with the kind of jokes coders anywhere can use to crack ourselves up. I'm not specifically calling out the other forum member here, as I don't know if there's interest in further promoting that particular group here, or just running with the small initial team that's made a strong start.

The copywriting review thread helped me realize anew, damn I love this stuff and can be really good at it for pay. I'll be helping a forum member with some revisions of his business copy this week for some free practice.

So, Fox's web design model is my primary path for now, leading on to development of a full-service marketing agency with strengths in copywriting, photo & audiovisual, and coding. But first, basic web sites to help business clients make more sales. I'll discuss that more in my next post.

 

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[Late Bloomer]

So it's Fox style web design for now​

Rob, I'm going through your posts again, and your YouTube channel. Again I have to say, thank you so much for your very detailed and forthright look at exactly what went into your success. I feel I made the right choice picking you as my role model and virtual mentor for my short-term business success now!

The person I want to work with on web site sales, is an old friend with compatible values and priorities. She has excellent sales and customer service experience, based on a true attitude of caring and service. Without knowing what she was doing, got a lot of great free online publicity for a publication.

Business sales, and web code are all new to her.
She has a psychology background and is a good writer. I believe with some study, she could be an excellent copywriter whose work engages the emotions of buyers.
Her guy is a musician and audio producer. They've done custom audio programs with delightful narration and custom backing music.

I'm going to recommend that she watch these videos from you, for a concise but thorough overview course in web site sales:

1 no experience
2 work for free?
3 business results whiteboard
4 first sale with email templates
5 what to charge
6 sales questions
7 sales mistakes
8 $3,000 sale (pretty funny to hear the music on hold, but that helps set realistic expectations for a business call!)

Total: 2 hours

I'll tell her to just ignore your remarks about html and Wordpress, as I'll explain the technology options to her within the next one to two weeks. I believe that she'll say, "The way that guy sells web sites, is exactly the way I've successfully sold clothes and other things. Care about the customer, come up with good choices for them within their budget, and offer it to them. We can do this!"

I'm not going to recommend the $7k and $23k sales calls yet. I find those bigger numbers exciting, but I think she'd find them a bit intimidating. I think after we have a month selling $3k projects, she'll be ready to think bigger once we have a growing portfolio and reputation.

She said she thinks many of the low-budget writers and artists she knows would like a web site, provide plenty of referrals, and happily pay in the few hundred dollar range. That's too low to sustain the business model I want to have, but it could be a nice little sideline to fill in between bigger projects.

I also think in this way, we'll be able to develop our own network of freelance artists who can add unique graphic design and illustrations to sites, for a small amount of money and a big impact on visually oriented clients. If the sites are inexpensive to build quickly, but they give us access to creativity we can resell for a bigger profit, I think that could be worth while.

I think that with this team, we can ultimately find some clients who have a good message, and put together an info-marketing package for them with web site, podcast, youtube channel, book etc., for a piece of the action.

My goal this week is clear: the magic three to five site portfolio, of sites that are high quality even if small. I'm hoping we can get paid for these, but am willing to do them for free if needed.

My goal for the rest of May is to have at least $1,000 for us to split from site sales. Whether from the initial deposit on one site sold for at least $2k, or whether from three different $350 sites paid fully up front. That would validate the business plan and partnership for each of us. It would also let each of us get a couple of immediate bills out of the way.

Thanks again! I hope to be one of your successful launch stories this summer!

 

[Late Bloomer]

I haven't been on the forum as much for the last couple of weeks, because of a couple of twists in life and business.

I talked with the two co-owners of a business I thought would be an ideal client for a web site. They want to be known as experts in a field where they'll advise and inspire people, and sell products.

They would like to work with me, but not on the web site at first. Turns out that they want to first write a book about their expertise, and then build a companion web site and online marketing campaign to bring them some fame as experts.

They have too much material for a book and have never been able to get it organized well. They would like me to either ghostwrite or, as a credited co-author, cowrite the book, and then we'll move on to discuss the web site. I don't care about the credit, as long as the check clears! I read through everything they have so far, and we had conference calls about their objectives. We are currently sending some documents back and forth about how the book and the payments could be organized.

But that in turn was put on hold, because one of the principals has a potential client ready to pay him to ghostwrite a different book. The book is about someone else's business administration concept, and the software that implements it. And he'd like to bring me as subcontractor for that project first, because he feels over his head about explaining the software.

That proposal got sent out today. If his client accepts, my share of this project would be a little over $20k. It wouldn't be all at once, rather in installments through the end of the year as chapters are done. But the amount is definitely enough to get me out of the swap and on my way! And the schedule for this would be part-time, so I could do the second book, and pick up some web projects.

I didn't reach my May goals the way I thought I would, but I sure have had a couple of interesting weeks.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I've been away from the forum a bit because I've been writing and negotiating my a$$ off with a couple of book proposals. Sold one today, a book explaining a new type of corporate software... about a third of my year's income needs met with this one, which will be paid in installments between now and the end of the year as I finish chapters.

When first check arrives in the next week or two, I'll upgrade to an INSIDERS account and ask MJ how to get a signed copy of his books.

Web consulting stalled because I have someone eager to work with me on that, but she's had a month of having to take family members to the emergency room. Looks like medical crises are now past, so we can get back to pitching some web deals.

 

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[Late Bloomer]

For the project where I'm a subcontractor, the general contractor and I had a long conference call with the client today. This is the first time the client and I had any direct communication with each other.

IT WENT GREAT!!

This was one of the most enjoyable, most productive business conversations I have ever had!

The general contractor had recorded (with permission) his conversations so far with the client. I had heard them. My impression was that the client seemed to be disorganized, rambling, hard to follow, unfocused. But in today's conversation, the client was goal directed, well focused, a clear communicator, easy to understand, obviously a leader in his own organization.

We had really great rapport and respect between all the people on the call. The client likes what we talked about as our next steps for the project. We will have our next call in a couple of weeks, when the client will do a screen share with us to let us see his company's custom software.

This experience put a spotlight on something I've thought about for a while. Assuming a buyer can benefit from an offer and can afford it, the most important thing in business, at least for me, is that they are a high quality person with mutual respect. If you can't accept each other and each person's ideas, how can you ever have an exchange of those ideas in order to create value together? It's that mutual acceptance which makes possible the exchange of views, which leads on to the exchange of money.

This also lets me see there is something I've missed in thrashing around, trying to get my own projects going outside of this collaboration. I need to refocus my entire marketing/sales funnel idea on this premise: I want to invite the people who would be happy to have a business conversation with me. If we can get into a conversation, maybe there's not a good reason to do business together now... that's fine. But with that respect, if there is a good reason to do business together... we'll find it.

Good stuff to ponder as I get my materials ready for the next meeting.

P.S. My check will be put in the mail today, so I've been told by a usually reliable source. Should be in my hands early next week. When it arrives I'll finally buy into INSIDERS here.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I discovered my focus area where I believe I'm uniquely qualified to add substantial business value to this forum: The only three sources of business value

I'm having great conversations with the person who's interested in working with me on the marketing consulting. She has a psychology degree and counseling experience. Although she's not currently licensed, she can legitimately offer personal coaching for self-development and personal growth issues. We are building a plan for me to help her market this service on her own. Together, we will market a business development service for entrepreneurs that helps them get their head on straight, develop unique offers, and better promote and sell what they can provide. I'm really excited about all of this.

The freelance book writing project involves a couple of long conference calls, one today and another on Friday. The client's software is supposed to help business people organize their information. We will try it out on the book itself. The client's never used it with a creative project before, and my co-writer and myself have never used software like this for a book before. It should be an interesting learning experience for everyone.

I've got four videos for my silly Youtube experimentation but I want to make a few more before I launch the channel, so that I can quickly drop in already-prepared material if there's any initial enthusiasm. It takes several hours to do each video, so I'm trying to get a new one or two in the can each week.