Desert of Desertion

[Raja]

One tactic you could use is take notes.

@Kid
of what?
daily actions, daily effectiveness, daily achievements, daily ideas, daily measurements from goal setting metrics.

it would help if you were more clear.

 

[Raja]

Its pretty hard to get that kind of experience without working for other people.

@Jon L I did an internship(got treatment almost like an employee) and didn't like the experience, not concluding all jobs are the same but the thing is, I hated the most is lack of freedom.

I don't want to do the job so I am first building myself a job(this year) then move to Fastlane business.

how can I get this kind of experience?

sorry for hijacking your thread @Tuvo Apps

 

[Black_Dragon43]

yeah I agree with you. I was hoping to provide him with a way to understand consulting incoming that he probably isn't right now.

I do know that my previous experience in jobs has helped me a lot in what I do now - even if i didn't realize it at the time. I was a particularly poor product manager when I worked for someone else, but being around people who were good at what they did rubbed off on me. Now, for example, I can go to a business owner, look over their reports and immediately recognize what they're missing. I had this one guy last week eating out of my hands as I was describing what he needs to be looking at. Its pretty hard to get that kind of experience without working for other people.

That's great! Yes, I think that the best thing is for one to get an overview and solid understanding of the skill/profession first. Otherwise, you are limited as a consultant... even though you don't have to be able to execute the job (since you can hire others to implement), you still need to know WHAT has to be done, and that requires experience. The fastest way to do that? Take a lot of jobs, and it's much faster to do that cheaply, then expensively.

Having said that, he will have a hard time on Upwork finding the consultant type clients. It's possible, but it's hard. I think I only took 1 client from Upwork in the past 1 year. The rest were referrals or out of the network I built or direct outreach via LI/email.

I've got a few clients from forums (like this one), but generally these are not ideal clients in my experience. They either expect things too cheaply or don't know what they want and aren't quick at taking decisions. Forums do have the tendency to be filled by the less successful people from my observation. I would hazard a guess that most people of TFL are people who don't yet have a business, or if they do, they're just getting started and pretty much have little cash for anything. Of course, there are some successful ones, but much fewer.

One big problem I have personally seen is what I mentioned before... a lot of people who are not really qualified, are being encouraged to go out there and try to close big sales. That is what all the gurus are doing... people for example who own copywriting schools. The result is not good, at least when they try it on someone who understands their job better than they do - like I do with copywriters. I get these people who have completed this and that school, and were mentored by X Y Z, but actually their skills and understanding is terrible. They've just been told go out there, stick your price at $100/hr, and start selling.

 

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[Kid]

Basically note your thinking. Its different from journal b/c journal is log of things you did.
And notes are what you think.

There are no rules to follow. Try writing this, then that, and see what works for you. You might find that writing something that is specific to you will help, while someone's else way would be of no benefit to you.

Hope it makes sense.

@Kid
of what?
daily actions, daily effectiveness, daily achievements, daily ideas, daily measurements from goal setting metrics.

it would help if you were more clear .

 

[Raja]

Sorry, still I don't get it.

The thoughts have to be specific to invoke thinking, thats my opinion.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Show me your marketing/advertising/sales strategy and I'm 90% sure that's why you are sucking.

Bro, I paid for some craigslist ads, learned basic wordpress and got to $4,000 a month while vacationing in Thailand last winter. (It turned out to be very difficult to actually get the work done since I was on vacation but that's a different story).

Don't mistake the "desert of desertion" with just wasting your time not taking efficient action.

1. Get a real sales strategy. If your strategy is "word of mouth" and "family and friends" then go join a pyramid scheme. Pay for ads, call 100 businesses a day, etc. Just do something better than whatever you're doing now.

2. Stop charging hourly. You can charge $3,000 for a website that takes you a week to do working a couple hours a day. Hourly wages are for hourly slaves. The company my best friend works for paid $20,000+ for a wordpress site. I could've built their site but I just didn't know the decision maker that works there that was looking for a web design agency.

Not changing your strategies is not "persistence", it's laziness. You burned up many years of your life not because you are focused, but because you didn't change or use your goddamn brain.

Don't waste the next few years. Change your shit this weekend!

Curious, what was your offer/pitch to them?

 

[Tuvo Apps]

$15,000 in 3 years is $400 a month. That's not a lot. I think at least a few things are going on:

1) Your clients are taking advantage of you. Start charging $50/hr for every hour you work for a client. Let them know that that is starting immediately. You will lose some clients. That's a good thing. You also need to make yourself worth $50/hr to a client. Honestly, you need to be charging $100 for every hour you work for a client, but $50 is a good start.

2) You have waaaay too much free time on your hands. Not sure what you should do about that? Maybe get a full time job, move out, and work on the business on the side?

3) Are you depressed? Pursuing entrepreneurship for 8 years with the results you've gotten would lead me to think you're depressed. If you have insurance, go get yourself checked out for depression. If not, at least take an online test to see what's up: Self tests

Thank you!
1) I do not charge per hour. I do web design and other marketing servies, and charge a flat fee (between $1K and 2K per project).
2) This is very true. I will definitely have to get a job, I'm already researching sales jobs in my area.
3) I don't think I have depression - most of the time I feel happy and grateful. I knew entrepreneurship would be a long journey, and didn't ever expect to make money fast. I do need to talk to a professional for other reasons though (for example my anxiety, which has prevented me from getting a job throughout those 8 years).

I vote for charging $50/hr and then figuring out how to deliver that value.

I get your point, but don't understand how a change in pricing would show in the real world. I have noone to tell my prices to. I find a client (on Facebook, not on freelancing sites), get on a call, find out his problems and then tell them the price. Since I charge a flat fee, I could simply increase my prices, but the projects I do are so few and far between, that it wouldn't really make a difference. I need to tap into a steady flow of new work, "official" freelancing might be a good way to achieve that.

Basically note your thinking. Its different from journal b/c journal is log of things you did.
And notes are what you think.

That sounds great, thank you. I will start doing that, maybe I will notice a pattern in my thinking. Also, I will be able to look at my thoughts 20 years from now, and see if I think any differently

2. Live in the NOW and don´t put off everything you want to do for later.
You can work out now. You can have friends now. You can have fun now. Just don´t go overboard(I think 80/20 is pretty good here, google counterbalance work-life)

Thank you! You are very right. I've been putting things off for so many years, it's crazy. I need to change my way of life, because I'm clearly not getting results the current way. It's so scary for me to actually start living, and not live the "entrepreneur in a basement" life, waiting for my big break, though! But the regrets I would have would definitely be way worse.

 

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[Fergus-tunef]

Also, doesnt your current path/ buisiness model violate the ability to scale? Maybe you are learning skills which will be used in a scalable buisiness but at the moment building websites for a cash payment is a trading time for money

 

[SkyLake]

Anxiety and insecurity in business will do that to you.

Especially in an industry where you need to talk to people like web design, where sales are at least 50% of the job.

Make 100 cold sales call today, make a list and just do it, you'll suck but that's good - get the mistakes and suckness out of the way ASAP. If you can't, then business is not for you - not everyone has to be an entrepreneur. Find a job then.