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Building a web design business & trading stocks | Monterey, CA

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...
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Deleted84968

Guest
I read the the posts from @Get Right and @GuitarManDan and they motivated me to start my own (thanks for sharing guys).

So I'm starting, or have started on two journeys for the last 2 years; for trading it's been a little less than a year. It's been an up and down time on my own and luckily I haven't quit when times got tough.

My intention with this post is to share my journey, tools I come across and as a way to hold myself accountable. The other added pro I see is that by consistently showing up here I'll be able to connect more with the community here as we work towards making life changing money.

I'll share a little about both journeys here and in later posts I'll share more details about what's worked for me and how things are going.

Web Design

Web design started as a hobby helping out a friend's business. They had a pretty bad website and I asked them if I could build one for them. I didn't have any coding experience background or design work, but I was looking for a new path for making money.

Prior to this I had a really amazing opportunity to work overseas for a financial company, whose owner would be my first mentor on making life changing money. Seeing him was a great eye-opener to see what it takes to make life changing money. It was an uncomfortable experience.

The work was revolved around sales, my weak-point, and after some time I left the company on good terms as things didn't work out; in some ways I buckled under pressure, but it was a learning experience. My weakness in sales will come up again.

So back to web design...I came back to California after that work and was putting the pieces back together.

I asked my friend if I could design their website for free and they were up for it. It took me a few months and a lot of research, but I managed to built a really nice website for them with WordPress.

They were so happy with it, that their partner asked me if I would be interested in designing their businesses websites. They ended up paying me 2k for the job. So started the journey, although fear and a lack of commitment stagnated my progress greatly.

I struggled for a little over a year and a half, not having consistent projects and income. I had all of my projects come through referrals. I wasn't comfortable marketing myself.

Fast-forward to this year. I took a Freelancers Workshop with Seth Godin back in March of 2020. It was a great experience and helped me level-up my clarity in my work and also connected me with a great group of other professionals. I highly recommend the workshop if you're into it (feel free to ask me any questions about it).

That helped fast-track a lot of things by learning from others who were already successful. My issue was still sales. So this month, in August, I signed up with @Fox sales program for web designers.

I knew of Fox from a killer reddit post he shared on reddit since last year. I would come back to it a few times for motivation. Basically he shared his success in web design after a few months at it. In a nutshell is was: if you can sell, you can make good money in web design.

I wasn't making that much money, so it resonated with me and somehow I found his YouTube channel. Fast-forward to this month and I signed up with the Fox group to take care of my sales problem.

The journey is still in the works for that, so I'll post more details on this in another post.

Trading Stocks

Before reading TMF , trading stocks was my vehicle to make life-changing money.

In 2018 I came across a book that planted a seed about day traders. I knew nothing about them and started to research them for a few weeks. Web design took most of my focus, trying to figure that out, but I would spend some time on trading and finding more about it.

Over the last 12 months I have been going deeper into the community of successful traders. I've become more committed studying the material and dvds, watching them a multiple times and getting a feel for it.

This month is the first month I've taken the leap from studying to actually trading. Actually it will be next month that will be the first month. This month I signed up for the community, my brokers and the platforms I'm using (the foundation).

I'm not treating this as a get-rich-quick thing. It's more of learning a skill and seeing if I'm any good at it.

Like with web design, I'll share more about trading and what I've found so far in a later post.

-

These two vehicles are what's on my plate right now. I'm open to what happens down the road. Maybe I drop both or I hold onto them and keep riding them. Reading TMF opened my eyes and I'm happy to connected with a group of like-minded people. Thanks for sharing this @MJ DeMarco

My focus is to live on my terms and earn life-changing income over the next couple of year. I'm now 30 and by my late 30's I'd like to be able to retire from the rat race.

I'm going to do my best to be as transparent as possible with my posts. Feel free to ask any questions on anything I mention. I'd love to help out if I have the time or maybe you feel you need to challenge me on my thinking (which I would love to hear).

All in all, I'm happy to be here and looking forward to connecting with the community more.

- Farid
 
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LucasTheGloucas

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The great news here is that your web design / development business has been surviving solely on referrals. This is proof your work is high-quality, so congrats on that.

With a bit of a sales boost, which I'm confident you'll be getting from signing up with Fox, you'll be taking this to the next level in no time.

Something that has helped me during sales droughts is just genuinely talking with prospects and connecting rather than selling anything. It takes most of the pressure off the discussion. Often times, even if you can't solve their problems, you may know someone that could. This helps build up momentum, trust, and this prospect will remember you cared about him, not about yourself.

Looking forward to your updates!
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Something that has helped me during sales droughts is just genuinely talking with prospects and connecting rather than selling anything. It takes most of the pressure off the discussion.

Thanks for the comments @LucasTheGloucas.

The book I'm keen on for selling is SPIN Selling Fieldbook and it says, "look to understand more than to persuade". Such a simple and straight-forward mindset for selling in general. Not everyone is a good fit.
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Web Design

Update on my current situation and goals for the year.

My weakness has definitely been in sales. Like a lot freelance web designers I met. I focused on learning design instead of winning new projects.

Currently all my projects are through word of mouth. I'm working on changing that and learning how to find my own clients.

The goal for this year is to turn this into a profitable web design business that generates a healthy monthly income to support myself on within this year.

I'm currently living off my savings, which isn't a lot and getting the support of family for my living situation. Love my family, so it's great to spend more time with them.

I may have a room rental in place and will find out by this week if it works out or not. That would be an awesome step to get my own room and independence. Will add to the fire!

The main focus for September is sales sales sales!

My main tasks are to focus on improving my mindset with spending time visualizing my success each day. Preparing for my meetings with practice runs with other Fox group members and reading up on my preferred sales book, SPIN Selling Fieldbook.

Lastly and what it's all building up to is prospecting with cold calls and networking to have as many quality meetings as I can handle.

I'm pretty sure I will learn SEO and generate a monthly service and recurring income for myself to free up my time down the road.

My goals for this year and September are BIG compared to my past mindset. We're here to stretch.

Thanks for this revenue tracker idea @GuitarManDan

2020 Revenue Tracker: $0 Revenue / $40,000 Goal

September 2020 : $0 Revenue / $10,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $0 Per Month / $5,000 Per Month Goal

That's all for now. I'll share a post on what tools have helped me so far along my web design journey soon.
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Web Design Tools

Here's a list of tools and things I've picked up along the way for web design that have helped me. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions on them.

Learning To Code

W3Schools - HTML & CSS
  • Started here and went through both HTML and CSS courses twice. Good foundation. A bit dry in terms of the "fun" in the way they teach it.
Learn to Code HTML & CSS | Shay Howe
  • A lot more "fun" in the way this course is. Really good course for beginners and advanced stuff.

Project Management

Trello
  • Free, works well and many templates to play around with to your liking.
Asana
  • Free version and paid version (free is enough for me). I like the interface and due dates. I do my best to keep things simple. This works for me.
Bascamp
  • Free version and paid. Love the company! Did more than I needed it to do.

Payment/Invoice Systems

Wave
  • Free, has invoices, recurring monthly invoices and receipt tracking. It's what I've been using the entire time.
Fresh Books
  • Paid, lots of features and need to see if the cost is worth it for you. Love the founder and his outlook on business!

Work Agreement / Contracts

HelloSign
  • Free version and paid version. Allows us to send pdf documents for e-signatures. Sends a professional signal.
Contract Killer
  • Open-source free contract template. I used this and made it my own.

Value Pricing

Breaking the Time Barrier (book - 1 hr)
  • From the founder of Fresh Books. Great book on going from hourly billing to value pricing. Read it a few times. Reminder to read it again.
Pricing Design Work | Chris Do (video - 37mins)
  • Mindset shift to go from hourly billing to value based pricing.

Sales

SPIN Selling Fieldbook (book)
  • Great book on sales process backed by research. Not manipulative and more based on common sense. We are not for everyone.
Fox Sales Legend Program
  • Program on sales for web designers. Brings a group of people with the same goal of improving sales together; accountability. There's probably a bunch of programs. This one works for me.
Fox Web School | YouTube Channel
  • Lets you in on how he does things and what works for him. This was helpful for me.

Education

The Freelancers Workshop
  • Part of Seth Godin's Akimbo workshop. Such a game-changer for me! Helped me refine my craft and business as well as connect with a bunch of other professionals around the world. Highly recommend!
Seth Godin Startup School (podcast)
  • "Live recording, hear Seth as he guides thirty entrepreneurs through a workshop exploring how they can build and run their dream business."
Rework (book)
  • From the founders of Basecamp. Shifted how I view more things than just business; common sense in many ways.

That's my brain dump for what's been working for me so far. FYI, each link is an affiliate link. Lol, just kidding :)
 

LucasTheGloucas

Contributor
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Aug 1, 2020
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Ha!! I saw your post on reddit!

I saw this post a week ago and it's how I found out about the Value Based Pricing book which I read and loved, will definitely be recommending it to my prospects.

Short and valuable read.

Thanks for posting this here too :)
 

PeterBoss

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The way to make money in finance is having assets under management, charge fees and try to slimly outperform the market.

Unless by successful traders you mean you've been working with people that trade in banks/institutions and develop models for it, stay away from anyone that has a course, dvd or training material. Just as a reference, remember that: New Study Shows Just How Unprofitable Day Trading Is | Finance Magnates

If you are really serious about it, you should probably look into something like the CQF: The Certificate in Quantitative Finance | CQF. It will give you a better understanding of what you are up against.

Not trying to discourage you, or being negative. The money is not in trading, is in moving other peoples money around, charging for the service of management, market access, executions, etc. That was mainly the old model when someone said it work as a trader in the past...
The reason trading and traders cemented their success in the '80s was because internet wasn't a thing and the business was different; you can check this documentary, which will show you the whole picture far better than I can:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--H8SY334Zw


The business has changed dramatically; the press, the storytelling and people's greed hasn't.

EDIT: of course, if you are great at modelling, have developed a valid, backtested, stress tested approach... or you are someone really great as Jim Simons (great Mathematical mind, with extensive academic track record before going into investing at all) then you can disregard all of the above.
 
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D

Deleted84968

Guest
Ha!! I saw your post on reddit!

I saw this post a week ago and it's how I found out about the Value Based Pricing book which I read and loved, will definitely be recommending it to my prospects.

Short and valuable read.

Thanks for posting this here too :)

Haha, small world! Glad it was useful.

I got so much value back from reddit in the past and still do, it's nice to give it back.
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Trading

This one is more complicated than the web design. I've had about a week or so of bad sleep and I knew I needed to address something.

I realized focusing on building a web design business and trading wasn't working. I wasn't making strong progress in either one. I was spreading myself too thin and wasting time.

I'm not saying it can't be done. It just wasn't the best use of my time to focus on both at once.

Last night I decided to focus 100% on web design until I have consistent income coming in. I'm putting trading on hold for now. I think I'll circle back to it. Let me see how things go in the next few weeks and months.

I feel a lot better, because I feel I took off a lot of pressure I put on myself. I'm also excited to have more energy to focus on one thing and double down on it.

In my next post I'll share the resources that helped me get a better understanding of day trading the past 8 months.

@PeterBoss, appreciate the comment. My next post should show more of where I was coming from and my strategy I had going in.
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Trading Resources

In my last post I mentioned I put trading on hold for now and I'm focused only on the web design business. I still believe I can be a successful trader if I choose to be.

Short update is I was studying for a little less than a year for a few hours a day. Then this month I took a bootcamp with other traders and started to trade. That experience opened my eyes to the realization that I would have to focus on one, web design or trading, to really make big progress.

I was spreading myself too thin focusing on both.

I decided on web design, because I'm closer to making a recurring income than in trading. Day trading for consistent income is a bad mindset to come with, but I'll get more into that soon.

So here's a list of resources I've used in the last 8 months to study day trading. It's not extensive, but more some food for thought. No affiliate ties with any of the links.

My Strategy
Focus on the morning volatility from 9:30am to 11:30am, New York time. Momentum trader, usually in and out within the day.

Investors Underground
Great community of quality traders. Nate M is the founder and has been trading for almost 20 years. They have 2 DVDs on day trading that's quality. They focus on listed stocks and some penny stocks. The advantage of this group is you're surrounding yourself with successful traders.
Link

Tim Grittani
Great day trader who turned $1,500 into $12,000,000 over the last 8 to 10 years. He created a DVD called, Trading Tickers which is very valuable into how he trades. He's a good teacher and gives back a lot to the community. There's a lot of content from him from his blog, youtube and dvd. I'll link to his YouTube.
Link

Tim Sykes
Focused on pennystocks and markets like crazy! Has a lot of fluff in his material, but he also knows what he is talking about. He's a little too salesly. I would look into him and see if it resonates. I'll link to his youtube.
Link

Books
- Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
- Market Wizards

Key Lessons From Studies
- cut losses quickly
- have a process
- discipline + patience
- have a plan before entering a trade; risk management
- focus on good trading, profits will follow (fundamentals)
- logic vs emotion

That's about it. Let me know if you have any questions. I'd be happy to answer them if I can.
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Little update on how web design is going.

I've been consistent with the Fox Course material and SPIN Selling Fieldbook. My focus is on preparation for the real thing to knock it out of the park.

In the past, my biggest project was 2.5k through a referral. I'm putting in the work now to send the right signals and help the right customers to land projects worth 7k and more.

I had 4 sales practice sessions this week with other members and that was great! Next best thing to having the real thing. They felt a bit uncomfortable, but it was great to put the material to use. Will only get better with more experience.

There's a potential project with a construction company I've kept in touch with. The owner is a cool guy and built the company from nothing by himself. They're now doing a few million a year and growing.

I told him I would love to stay connected with him and learn from him. Lol...pretty straightforward!

He asked me if I could look into a web app for designing custom cabinets for his business. It's way out of my experience and I let him know. I told him I would be happy to look into it and possibly take on a project manager role for him since he's short on time.

However, after doing some research the project might be way bigger than he thinks it is and more than I want to take on; big time commitment and isn't aligned with my goals.

I'm going to have a chat with him and see what he really wants. Maybe a new website strategy and SEO is the right solution for him.

Will focus on taking it one step at a time. Maybe it works out.

Last bit is I've had some recurring clients for monthly maintenance from before and will add that to the revenue tracker.

My plan is to let these clients go soon, find them a different solution and focus my efforts on bigger income generating tasks. Most likely SEO and web design projects.

2020 Revenue Tracker: $190 / $40,000 Goal

September 2020 : $0 / $10,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $190 / $5,000 Per Month Goal
 

StillGrindin'

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Big fan of The Futr Youtube channel. The Pricing Creativity book by Blair Enns is a gamechanger. You should also watch Chris Do's roleplay videos. This guy just nails it on the spot everytime.
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Big fan of The Futr Youtube channel. The Pricing Creativity book by Blair Enns is a gamechanger. You should also watch Chris Do's roleplay videos. This guy just nails it on the spot everytime.

Yeah, I'm a big fan as well. I haven't watched too many videos, but the ones I watched were quality packed and little to no fluff.

Also I haven't gotten around to Blair's content, but I did watch a Futur video with him and Chris Do. It was great stuff on mindset and sales. (link)

Here's two other videos from The Futur with Jonathan Starks that I liked on value pricing (both over an hour):
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Just to give an update on web design. I want to be transparent as possible - so this has been a tough week! Cash-flow has been tight and that's stressful.

I had some doubt sneak in and that had an impact on my work and what I focused on. Still doing my best to show up. Looking at my different options and seeing what's most aligned with what I want/goals.

I'll share more when I have more clarity.

Have a nice rest of the week.
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
Update

My thoughts are going to be all over the place in this one.

I had a tough week and a half mentally and emotionally. I questioned web design and thought about getting a job instead since cash-flow has been tight.

Some tough questions came up for me that I had to answer. I loved that I took the time to look into them and answer them honestly, because in the past I would avoid these questions.

I still believe success is more mental than physical. We make the decision inside and then execute outside.

The decision I made is to let go of web design and shift to SEO consulting.

I'm doing this because it's a high-value service that I can leverage for myself and also have a great impact in my clients business.

I'm also leveraging my past clients and connections from web design to find my first 3 clients for SEO.

My goal is to partner with 3 high-value clients for monthly SEO consulting, help their lead flow and cash-flow $7,000 to $10,000 a month within this year. So over the next 3 months.

It's a big goal for myself that makes me uncomfortable.

SHIFT

Shifting to the next part of what I've been doing.

I've been building a relationship with a multi-million dollar construction company the last few months that I met through an old client.

I resonate with the founder on many levels. I've been honest with him that I'd like to work with him and learn from him.

I wrote him a hand-written letter last week about areas I saw that I could help him in his business. It was great, because all my sales practice from the last few weeks helped me put together a letter that was all about him and how I could help him! Sales is about helping the client - I made it more about me in the past.

Just 6 years ago the founder was sleeping in his car and now he's working on a $60 million dollar investment deal!!

I checked in a few days later after I sent the letter and asked to meet with him. I was able to connect with him this weekend and he said he wanted to partner together and do a web project together. See how it goes and then partner for another one if I'm good.

It's a 5k deal and then potentially 10k to 20k after that!

Really happy about showing up consistently with him and being myself.

It's not in contract and there's no money in my account yet, so it's not for sure yet. Just to be honest it's not done until I'm paid.

The relationship with him has been great, because I was honest with him and told him about my doubts about web design as my vehicle for my future.

I thought that might be the wrong move, but I decided to share it with him so that I can keep being honest and myself. It turned out to be the right move, because he could trust me and know where I'm coming from.

I pitched the SEO as well and it seems like we'll first do the web project and then check in from there.

I know I just wrote about no more web design lol. This is an exception to further the connection with this client and also bring in some cash.

Final Stretch

Just got off the phone with an old client to talk about SEO with them and it was a great call! It looks like I just got my first SEO client for $500 a month for the first two months.

So I'm new to SEO and am not going to lie about that to clients. Especially since these are past clients who trust me.

My pitch is open the door for me for two months at pro-rated $500 a month and if they're not happy with my results within the first two months of the ranking reports I'll refund one of the months back to them.

If after two months they're happy. We can continue the partnership for another 6 months (at normal rates) and keep moving forward.

My idea is this allows me to get paid while I learn and work on real projects and they can test me out while also marketing their business.

My goal is to help them see a 8-10 time return on the investment they spend with me. So if I'm charging $2,500 they should be seeing a 25k a month return on the service. That way it's a no brainer for them and we can continue the partnership.

This makes me a bit uncomfortable since I'm still new. One step at a time. Happy I made the move to get on the phone with the a past client.

Do you have any opinions you want to share on my idea of pro-rating my first two months and then going from there? I would love to get others opinions. Maybe I can improve on it.

Thanks for reading!
 
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Deleted84968

Guest
I spent a couple days reflecting on my direction and plan. Things didn't feel right. I felt like I was still looking for the shortcut.

Recognized my real interest is in learning how to trade profitably. I should start before I'm ready.

Web design is a stepping stone and sort of like a part-time job. I do it to make money. Am shifting my focus from learning material (easy) to the more important part of marketing and winning projects (harder).

Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time.
Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important.
- Tim Ferris

New direction is to start my trading journey before I'm ready. I'm spending the first 3 hours of the day learning the content and the rest on freelancing until I have enough money to spend more time on trading.

Goal is to start earning consistent money and get my own place or room before this year ends.
 
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D

Deleted84968

Guest
Here's an interesting article on Flappy Birds successful founder. I liked how he did what he enjoyed doing and stopped it when he didn't like it anymore. Love that!

Article - The Flight of the Birdman
 

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