Exiting the cubicle farm and taking Web-Design full time

[RicardoGrande]

Hey all!

This is it! My first progress thread!
I'm a FWS student, having joined back in may, and I'm on the cusp of going from portfolio work to full-time client work this month.
It's sort of been hell, I was struggling with overtime at my dayjob, so I started waking up at 4:30am everyday to try and get work out the door before the dayjob hit.

As of this writing, I'm working with a 12m+ /yr Services company, and a small-business financial advisor (Both of whom are friends) as my two portfolio projects.
I also have an upstart product business that wants to partner with me, but they won't be ready to go until next year.
Both of the main sites are almost ready to go out the door. From there, I can start on maintenance, lead gen negotiations, and SEO to get a better handle for things.

How is it working out at the moment?
At the moment, I'm just using wordpress and flexing some of my old graphic design skills and copywriting experience to create compelling work.
I'm starting to notice a couple issues though:
- I don't know as much about SEO optimization as I should
- I don't have steady processes for repeatedly building deliverables yet
- I'm really nice and don't ask for money in trade for time or service when I need to
- I don't have a solid prospecting strategy yet, and a lot of coastal agencies are plundering my area for webdesign now

I have things in mind or how to deal with each of these, and they're things I'm facing as I reach them during my work.
I want to focus on answering all of these questions NOW, but I realized I'm probably getting ahead of myself and spinning into action faking.
At the moment, I'm just focusing on getting the websites out and building a common theme I can deploy and edit, and also learn about quickly designing unique, engaging websites for clients.
Once this is out of the way, I can focus on simpler jobs and work my way up over time.

What do my next 3-months look like?
Both of my sites will be roughly finished this week, I'll present both of them to the clients and ask for feedback and changes. If I play my cards right, I aim to get them to agree to maintenance packages (MRR, anyone?) and also ask for referrals.
I can't rely on the referrals alone though, and I've started to build up a list of businesses that look like they may need help.
Starting this week, I'll be e-mailing target companies in the morning, and since I've sent off an e-mail that morning, call them around lunch to ask "Hey did you get my e-mail?", I'm hoping this strategy can get me over some humps and allow me to have some good prospect conversations.

Over the next month, I'll also put my complete workflow process onto paper. I have pretty bad ADHD but when I can codify something into a list, it gets easier and more rewarding to work through.
There's also a TON of research into things like site analytics and how to send invoices and charge clients to be done, but for now I just want to focus on getting sales in so I can finally slam down my two weeks notice without worry about what could happen to me.

For now:
Pretty psyched about the whole thing. Compared to my past ventures, this is a lot farther towards self-employment than I've ever been, and I'm in a group with others who are seeing similar success or better that helps keep fuel in the engine. Got all of my medical stuff checked out and cleared early this year, and I am ready to quit once I start getting more market echoes and money into my bank account.
At this point, it's just up to me to keep at bat, and take it home.

Shout out to @Fox @GuitarManDan for leading the way and letting me into FWS and starting into a new phase of my life, thanks lads.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

Woweeeeeeeeeeee-
Just got off the call with the biggest proposal out right now. Talking near 5k worth of work. Client has some exact things in mind and I don't mind helping but it'll be some work.

Client asked me about how much a multi-page site would cost a month ago, I quoted the 2,400$ I closed for my other multi-page project but the owner of that site just threw it at me and needs "something", and that I'd have to hear out what they need and what they're going for. Client said they understood.

Somehow, we actually got onto two 45 minute brainstorming sessions and I had to catch them and try to run the later stages of spin on the second call just now (after a full day of work). I had some control over the conversation but felt to be on the back foot compared to what I read in sales books (I prospect like a dog but haven't done many sales calls as I don't have a lot of time- so have less experience). Managed to catch the end of the conversation, walked them through the qoute citing they need a lot and the base project is doable but has some more guidelines that would need more time. I threw in some complete discounts for services (about 10-12 hours of work) and stated I could reduce the main project price further if they could send me the design info they had made themselves.

We had a pretty good rhythm but I think I felt something and the client's tone and energy dropped a bit after they heard the pricing for the base project and the additional projects that could be completed later. Told them I'd send the proposal showing the exact line items and discounts and going over their situation- they said they'd review and get back.

I'm not 100% on this working out but I stuck with my guns for pricing for time involved- to me this is a signal to screen more, have more sales calls and work harder to get more results I can use as leverage. We'll see where this goes and who else I can get in for a sales call in the oncoming weeks.

No failure, only learning experience.

 

[RicardoGrande]

Yep, it's about time to go full time.
I can't count eggs before they hatch but so many people I ring up now are like "Thank god, yeah just send your info over"; I test it and ask "okay, so once I send my portfolio over, when do you want me to follow up and we can sit for a call?" and they'll give me an actual timeframe or day and have specific questions about what can be done and when I can get it done by.
I actually got in contact with two really exciting blue-collar company owners that need the work done last week, and stumbled backwards into another one who called me back today as I left work and said she needed something ASAP before about April.

Three proposals out right now, one I firmly believe wants to go forward this week, one I sold in December but had some stuff going on, the last one texted me wanting additional services. Overall looking to be about 8-9k worth of work... Wow. No words, just trying to hold onto it and slam down my two week notice so I can give these the time they need.

Now, I have been waffling on the MRR aspect, I know people sell retainers/care packages and hosting for 125$+ a month but I keep backing off and making it "300$/yr and you can call me if it's a bigger issue".

Also just saw a poll from the admin bar showing that about 40% of Wordpress agency owners make about 46k/yr on average (my current suppressed wage) with a decent chunk in the 50k-70k range. Thing is, very few do outbound marketing, less than 20% do any and less than 1% make any cold calls. What does this mean? While other people are sitting on their haunches waiting for referrals and complaining that web design isn't a good gig, I have the skillset to keep performing outreach and taking scalps- modified by my networking and hopefully being able to tap into those juicy referrals once I can complete more projects.

I did actually print and sign a resignation notice from my job Monday but something came up- I have another one and I have to slam it down this Friday. Sort of feel like a traitor to them for some reason? Not sure why, mgmt ignored so many important things and kneecapped my team for years- I'm internalizing though that they chose this, and I can't get held back rotting in a cubicle watching life go by.

Thanks for reading this long-winded thing, try to make it thorough for anyone else who's stuck in a pit and see what work you need for when you don't fall into $$$ right off the bat. I'm procrastinating on site work right now so gonna get back to it.

Wish me luck.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

Ugh, have these three proposals out right now that would replace 3 months of day job pay and I want to work on. After speaking with each of the owners these past two weeks, agreeing to a project/price and challenging them repeatedly "Okay, and you acknowledge that the budget will be x because you wanted y?" or "Okay, so we just wrapped up on this call, from 1 - 10 how secure are you in the knowledge that I will be able to deliver and from 1-10 how ready are you ready to get the proposal/invoice and start?" and getting 9s/10s... but here I am waiting days/weeks later.

The vanishing projects!

Luckily, this seems to be incredibly common, watching some sales training videos this morning I expanded my horizon that it's not "just" the initial prospecting and sales call... the fight isn't over until the whole project fee is sitting in the bank. I also learned that if I have any problems, the problem stemmed from the root- which was me, essentially there's a good chance I'm running defense for the prospect for them and not coming in with the authority and business attitude I need to.. Thinking seriously on dropping some dosh on sales training from Benjamin Dennehy. I don't think buying more courses is the answer and I've read "you can't teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar" but his free content has treated me very well. Ben's a heavy hitter when it comes to prospecting and running sales meetings and his students seem to get great results. I don't want to be out more than I have to be but I also know I need to SECURE and get at least 3 projects going before quitting to do this full time- especially if all these "warm leads" I've dug up may end up either ghosting before or after a sales call and a "close".

Once I can get to industry/networking events when I have my time back, things should get easier. If I can get to the point where 70% of web design agencies get where they can operate solely off of referrals... I'll be in heaven. Until then I'm still fighting it looks.
Wish me luck.

@Fox Any thoughts? These are people that confirmed a project and a close on the call and seemingly vanished into thin air.

 

[RicardoGrande]

This hasn't been a good last month and a half for me.

-excuses-
When I wrote the intro post, I had decent momentum, but I hit the desert of desertion with some tedious project work and lost sight of my why. In addition, I chose not to quit for some strange reason, and I'm still getting my energy sucked dry by my dayjob.
About 3 weeks ago, I got a surprise bill for $$$$ I had to pay out of pocket, and I spent that week drinking and doing absolutely jacksh** and feeling bad about myself and my future prospects. -/excuses-

Thankfully, that week showed me I had hit a low point, and I was able to cut the drinking out and hop back onto my discipline wagon with fasting and curating my time.

Here's where I'm out, and how I'm changing myself to build positive momentum-
Clients:
- I have not reached out to either client yet as their sites still need work.
- I have a list of 70 local prospects I've gathered during my lunch breaks, but don't feel I can interact with them until these two portfolio projects are completed.
- I cut my BS and have taken action to work on their projects everyday, I can afford to get SEMrush this next paycheck so I can overdeliver a bit.

Personal discipline:
- I've managed to cut out about an hour of screentime everyday and shut off all devices by 8pm so I can get 8ish hours of sleep and still wake early.
- I still end up browsing BS when I wake up early and can burn through 2 hours and immediately hate myself for it as I get dressed and drive in for my 8 of hate (dayjob).
- I'm making more of a conscious effort of double-checking short vs long term pain with any action I do now (Look up days 2 and 3 of personal power II on soundcloud) and I'm making much more of an effort
e,g. "I'm feeling tired, I could open up youtube and "relax" for a bit... but is a small dopamine hit now worth dragging out this task I'm working on? If I spend 5 hours watching youtube, am I not inflicting pain on myself in the future?"
- Managed to revive my meditation habit with a good 25 or so minutes a day

Wishlist:
- Find positive action I can take during downtime at work to further my web agency path
- Cut out 80% of internet browsing, convert time into positive work and drawing (end goal is to not need the internet in free time)
- Get the stones to quit so I can focus 100% of my energy into the agency and not have to spend hours in traffic every week


I'm not out of the wage cage yet, I feel my veins bulging at the thought of being stuffed back into it tomorrow, but I haven't given up and I'm working on forward progress once again. This would be a lot easier without the self-distractions but what is life without challenge?
Wish me luck as I work for forward progress.

 

[Itizn]

What helped me during cold calls (specifically when receptionists would answer) was to prepare and deliver a question that they cannot explicitly answer. The more technical, the better.

When I was looking to sell energy products, I'd ask the person:

"We're looking for a 1-11/16" xyz, but are having a hard time finding it. You might not have it either, but can you tell us which sizes you do offer?"

Most gatekeepers at that point pass you along. Could be a salesman, a technician, or even the boss himself.

 

[RicardoGrande]

Oh my god.
I know Fox is always saying "Go for the biggest budget that's reasonable".
I was on the phone with a one-man businessman that regularly does 10k-150k per client.
FOR SOME REASON I could only quote 1800$ and he went "1800$?!!?? That's cheap!"

Have that verbal agreement and maybe something for a monthly retainer(?) going to build out a statement of work and maybe put together a contract qouting a clean 2,000$ total.
If I get my other sale for 1,250$; I'd have replaced an ENTIRE MONTH of my wages from my job and have MRR rolling in to boot.

What the hell? I can see the light shining through the clouds???!!!??? I'm on cloud 9.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Fox]

Oh my god.
I know Fox is always saying "Go for the biggest budget that's reasonable".
I was on the phone with a one-man businessman that regularly does 10k-150k per client.
FOR SOME REASON I could only quote 1800$ and he went "1800$?!!?? That's cheap!"

Have that verbal agreement and maybe something for a monthly retainer(?) going to build out a statement of work and maybe put together a contract qouting a clean 2,000$ total.
If I get my other sale for 1,250$; I'd have replaced an ENTIRE MONTH of my wages from my job and have MRR rolling in to boot.

What the hell? I can see the light shining through the clouds???!!!??? I'm on cloud 9.

Once you get into the game with the right clients low prices are more dangerous than high prices.

Too low price = these guys are low quality
Too high price = well at least they are confident

 

[RicardoGrande]

Still at it. I've been talking to other WDs and hearing about pain points and pit falls but also about how to juice opportunity and set yourself up for success early on through processes and overdelivering. Asides that:
I'm absolutely amazed right now because I am closer to being able to quit and do this than I've ever been. Despite this, I've never felt more apprehension and fear and it's blowing my mind.
I have closed deals and people that want to sit for sales calls to see how I can help - wish I could've closed them before then but I barely have any time as is with the dayjob so I'll need to just quit, reconnect, and figure it out as I go from there.

The biggest thing I've been grappling with is that I'll be unplugging from the matrix and exiting the script.
No more will I be able to wake up on a Friday and find a paycheck was crapped into my bank account.
If I want to eat, I have to hunt and kill.
I can't dodge phone calls in the bathroom, I can't disappear into a backroom, I can't put off something because of a surprise 2-hour meeting (dear god why do people do these?) anymore. It's all on me and my execution.

There's more security in going to business for yourself, overdelivering, and building relationships and earning referrals than sticking with the dayjob... It's still scary, I can feel something dropping in the pit of my stomach thinking about leaving the JOB but when I do I force myself to remember:
- The coworker who got fired two days after joking about getting worker's comp when someone almost dropped a 50lb object on them
- The coworkers who worked there for 5 years and were notified on a Teusday afternoon that their positions were made redundant and they could either move on or they could re-apply and re-interview for totally different, lower-paying jobs in the org
- The single father who was pulling 70-80 hour weeks trying to help and supplement HR who was called up and fired the friday before July 4th and his vacation back up to see his family
- The fact I've been underpaid 30% for the area and offered absolutely no training (I've had to do my own job training OoP and after hours) in the years I've been here (my fault but it did give me the time to study and read and prospect)

I've always been a hard worker (despite the BS at that job) but I've seen what can happen to anyone when your life is in someone else's hands. So glad I put my face to the grindstone and made all these calls and learned and got work and discipline and I can make this a reality. I keep having this fearful thinking that I'll implode my finances and chances at life- and I will do everything I can to quash that and build a more successful life and way of living instead.

Action items
- Buy new domain that sounds less spammy so I have more success with e-mails
- Port site to new site
- Build case study
- Send new site to all the contacts that asked for my info in the past few months
- Book sales calls for the evenings this week (I have one tentative and two others I need to reach back out to)

 

[RicardoGrande]

Basic situation- Dug up some more interested people with the phone prospecting I've been sneaking in at work, at least 5 more businesses albeit 3 of them want touchbacks around May or June. Pretty astonished I've been feeling depressed even though I'm technically booked out for work until July- Even if I did just walk out of the dayjob on Monday and did nothing but work. All of this is on a sizeable backlog and I actually have about 25 people to still have a sales call with from the past 4 months but I imagine most of them have been poached by now (two did actually contact me this week but we didn't have a good time to talk as of yet).

My site- Finally started serious work on my own site and using some local SEO and submitted for a logo. I didn't need them but now that I can sell in the 2k range I really want the logo to go onto my proposal templates (going to run with hellobonsai which is a neat all-in-one service for freelancers, unless honeybooks looks better) to make this more serious.

Speaking of dayjob, got wiped the f*** out with covid I got from some @$$hole at work, and when I got back some stuff happened and I would not be able to put in my notice without pissing a lot of people off (they'd be pissed anyway, the current situation is tugging on my sense of duty- they treat me like shit why must we have empathy?). Being trapped at work and stuck with 5 or less hours a day to actually do site work I came to something- Maybe I'd be better off working on the business than in the business?

Moving into the future- Fox web school had some interviews and in one an agency owner mentioned when he had to hire his own first contractor due to time restraints. It seems to be relatively easy, I don't like the thought of coughing up 50%+ the price of the contract I won to someone else- but if I can work through my hulking f***ing backlog and maybe focus on selling MRR (I can handle maintenance around the dayjob) then maybe I'll be in a better position and mindset to quit and not care too much. Kind of sketched out I didn't think to do this months ago, I keep trying to work to an ideal and not with reality.
Understanding tactical sacrifices and protecting time and honing in on leverage is a BIG part of entrepreneurship, so maybe this lesson has been a long time coming.

...
In other words you are taking the task of quitting, which is actually an easy thing to do and blowing it out of proportion. So for example you are claiming that if you quit you are exiting the script, this isn't necessarily true because you could always go and get another job.
It might be good for you to think of this as process thinking where quitting simply becomes a simple task that you need to do in order to grow your business to provide a reasonable income for yourself.
...
Thinking that a step is a "big deal" encourages us to think too much about that step or to become anxious or change our minds just before we experience the success that we want.

I understand where you're coming from, but just to re-iterate: Quitting my job ends the supply of automatic paychecks, a familiar environment and work routine, and the largest chunk of structure and socialization out of my life.
I will be blessed with much more free time and self-agency but the self-agency is a double edge sword. I fear burning out, or shying away from prospecting, or getting over my head. There's also wildcards like maybe the economy collapsing or getting drafted to go fight in ukraine/china but hopefully that's just disaster-thinking and my own ego trying to hold me back.
It does have to happen and it is simple, there are real world effects both for my employer, but mainly for myself and while I am ready to step up to the plate and bat like hell, the uncertainty of what will become of my life is the fear you're reading.

 

[Choate]

Ok, regarding cold calling, maybe the best example I can share is this:

When I was 22 and fresh out of college, I joined a insurtech agency and we were licensed to sell a variety of car and home insurance, like Progressive or Travelers.

Let's say there's 100 people on our sales floor and each one has an autodialer that dials leads who at least filled out a form on some bullshit lead gen site trying to find insurance quotes. You might autodial 100 or 150 people per day depending on how many just don't answer at all. We're expected to close 1-2 new policies per day. You hit bonus territory after you've closed 45 policies for the month.

How many people out of 100 do you think actually hit bonus? And of those that hit it, how many actually make something that isn't negligible?

Answer: not a lot. Maybe half of the people hit about 45-50 policies, which might mean $100-$300 in bonuses. 10-20 people might hit 50+ policies. 5-10 people might hit 55+ or 60+, with one or two outliers getting even higher - so anywhere from $2k to $5k in bonuses.

100 people just like you, dialing the phone 100 times per day, following a proven questions-based sales script selling a product that people need, to semi-warm leads, with the latest in insurance tech to be able to quote, sell, and close a policy within a 15 minute phone convo.

Yet half of the floor couldn't even sell enough policies to put bonus money on the table, or couldn't care to.

If you look at your current sales process and where you are now, do you think you'd be someone selling 60 policies per month? 50? Would you even hit the minimum of ~40?

Cold calling is so nuanced that what I'm trying to say is that without significant experience and an actual mentor, you have to be your own critic. You probably shouldn't record your phone calls due to most states being two-party consent, but you can at least record yourself talking, and you should, and listen to it after. Create a script, refine it, stick to it, veer from it, break it, rip it up, and try again with a new one. Record everything.

Because at the end of the day, this isn't a thread that's even remotely about web design. It's about cold calling. It doesn't matter what you are selling.

Just remember that cold calling is a hustle and doesn't actually build brand value (and often has negative value associated with it). You can refine the process all you want and you'll carry that skill for life. That's great. But you should also work on a way to create inbound leads - website, blog, SEO, whatever. An asset, because not only will that bring in inbound leads but you can share it with your oubound leads. Maybe it's long term. But no one wants to cold call forever, and there isn't a magical pot o' referrals at the end of the rainbow once you hit 50,000 cold calls or 100,000 cold calls.

 

[RicardoGrande]

Alright. like 430 calls at this point, FIRST SALE came through... it's like 150$ + 10$mo for hosting and I was able to get them to pay for and set up their domain name so I won't be stuck with the renewal. I didn't even want to charge, but it's a small-time op where the owner was let go despite a good amount of years in service with his last employer. He was so pissed he had an FTE, turned around, and started his own his shop, somehow already has a building and is deadset on scaling up, hiring employees, and becoming a major player in my area.

I told him It'd probably be best if he just kept working his facebook page and that I'd send him links on how to list to local directories, he said "no no no", he was going to be expanding, and wanted to work on his pipeline now, besides his word of mouth. I still didn't want to charge him, I told him I could stand up a template so he'd be ready for SEO in half a year, he took it. So I've got this now, simple quick little project that lets me practice SEO, more importantly I've made my first monetary sale and ask for monthly recurring revenue.

I have others in the pipeline but two went dark and I'll have to keep touching base, I've been told it's not uncommon to reach out like 5-11 times (even if they do verbally agree to a sales call on the first call). Going to gun for bigger sales with these next calls.


Calls themselves: It keeps raining these past two weeks and people get really aggressive and persnickety when it rains, I'm still clearing about 20-25 calls a day regardless and getting people into my pipeline. I think my WORST day for calls was yesterday when I had 3 hangups and some verbally combative or disimissive rural business owners... but that's on them. I accidentally called one who had her fastlane exit 4 years ago after running a landscaping business and we had a nice chat about delivering on value and earning and keeping trust. It's those conversations that keep me going through the hangups or the sarcastic people.
Just learning as I go.
Thanks y'all.

 

[Andy Black]

Too high price

They must be good!

 

[RicardoGrande]

Just got off the phone with a shop owner, didn't bat an eye at 4,200$ + hosting/retainer fee for me.
That's over a month's worth of dayjob pay for me even after tax withholding.

Other news: minor ghosting, including ghosting from the guy I closed back in december but he seems ready to move. Have other people lining up in my calendar that want to start work soon.

Was at my job today with a signed resignation but saw the "YoU DOn'T HavE to be a FReELanCeR" thread where even Lex D was railing against freelancing and got depressed... pussied out. I have been good at inventing hypochondria symptoms too but maybe I just didn't feel ready... maybe I should've just had more faith in myself. Going to see how much I can do on my current projects, currently trying to oversubscribe to contracts on my plate to force myself to quit.

All this took a long damn time and I thought about either giving up or kidnapping Fox to make him refund my course fee over these past two years but the most important lesson I wasn't getting until now was to never give up.

 

[RicardoGrande]

Time for an update.

After really being in a dark place, I managed to get over myself in late Jan, something that was holding me back broke.
I went from dragging myself back from work, to waking up before 5, working on my client sites or learning my tools, going to work, coming back, and still working. Probably hitting 35-50 hours a week outside of work there.

Last summer I got a portfolio site out the door, but it wasn't the best. On top of that, the owner quit entrepreneurship (whoa) to go work a new job that was full remote, go figure. This January I started going back to meetups.

I had NO card, and not even a good portfolio site, I just showed up and decided to listen, to ask question, be helpful.
Started getting some leads in, and a new portfolio site with a financial advisor.
I worked my a$$ off and got that site out... but that business owner has gone dark, I have no updates as to how the site worked out for her.
Because I didn't want to lose my momentum, I went and re-built an old service-industry site for my buddy, and imo, it's working great now. I texted him to tell him about it, got a reply, asked if he wanted to feature case studies, and never heard back.
I had about 7 warm leads from the meetups I went to, and even had 5-6 e-mails with those business owners, but one by one, they went dark. The worst hit was when the guy who outright told me he paid four-figures a week for leads would GLADLY pay me if I could do anything to improve the quality of his leads, even said his brother would need work for his business depending on what I could offer.
Went ahead and drafted a roadmap, sent it over, ghosted.

My situation now
I need a paying client.

I have savings, I don't mind quitting my low-paying desk jockey job in the midst of a recession to play business roulette with cold-calling (shoutout to @Vilox) but I don't want to nix my income on a wish and a dream.
I've changed, I'm not even browsing the net or touching videogames at all, I'm starving to make this work, but there's a lot I don't know. I just want to make one sale so I can know this is real, and to confirm all these hundreds of hours of work I've poured in to learn about Web design, sales, and helping businesses.

If I could have a magic wand, I'd wish to know a better method to find leads in need, contact them, and win their business and then convert them to a subscription customer.
Currently using google maps to go down streets, business by business and finding interesting sites or the lack thereof, but I haven't been able to do cold outreach yet. I'm also aware that google JUST made a change that made e-mail outreach very difficult.

In Brief:
1) I've changed, I can get sh!t done now.
2) Portfolios complete, no contact from biz owners as of yet, thusly no results to report on.
3) Need to find and contact leads, only method at the moment seems to be cold calling but want to be SMART with time.

If you've run into a situation like this before and wouldn't mind helping a brother, I would infinitely appreciate the advice.


P.S. Also shoutout to @Andy Black for his Andy talks series, I've been able to listen to @Fox , @Vilox , and others candidly talk about their stories that resonate more with someone who's at the "figuring it out" stage
And also for giving some feedback, and linking to his "When your back's against the wall" Thread from about 4 years ago.

Cheers.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

Luckily, two people from the meetups reached back out, and I'm supposed to have a sales call with one of them this week.

I feel a bit of wind back in my sails.
--------------

For "finding clients": I went ahead and used an ingenious prospecting system that someone posted in the FWS facebook, and I have a spreadsheet of 60 businesses that I can not only call, but need some type of solid web design help that I can provide.
It's now up to me to go ahead and start cold calling.

I have the week as working remotely which means I'm free to make these calls whenever I want, I somehow spent today agonizing over small side things or distractions instead of picking up the phone.
I'm surprised because I did throwaway cold calling in 2019 and have about a 20% positive response rate. I'm probably just scared about calling and ruining something now that something (sales, success) is actually on the line.

I have 10 numbers that I'm telling myself I have to call tomorrow. I've re-framed it that I'm "offering opportunity, a blessing in disguise" to these business owners. I just hope to get over myself within the next 18 hours.

-------------
As a bonus, went ahead and signed up for loom and practiced filming video audits for some of the sites I've dug up, didn't send them (don't have e-mails for a lot of these businesses), but I feel confident I can present business problems and solutions to a business owner in an effective way in 3 minutes or less now.

Wish me luck everyone, not giving up.

 

[RicardoGrande]

Wow, 6 weeks of this.
About 650 calls now.
Im now at the point to where if Im stuck and traffic and see a work van, I call them up, no fear, just has to be done.

Getting less hangups but I think my pitch sucks because I keep getting Not interesteds. I feel terrible when I see posts from other WDs or fellow FWS students that are seeming to fall backwards into 2,000$+ jobs, but I wont give up.

Kinda hit a rhythm with waking up around 5am to do site work, and then dashing in and out of my dayjob at breaks to make calls. Thinking Im at the point where I need to stop focusing on quantity, and switch to quality, silo into a niche, scrape info, and send some cold emails and THEN call to hopefully have more credibility and win higher paying projects.

I have noticed that even for people that say "YES!"... they're like sand in your hand, I'll get ghosted come an agreed upon time for meetings and having to recall and follow up- but Im looking into ways to cut this.

Just hope all this work is worth it and I haven't been pissing into the wind. Accidentally called a man who just had heart surgery this morning, and oddly enough he was one of the few people to acknowledge the oncoming economic hardship and that he'd need help filling his pipeline... and specifically requested a callback in the end of october. I have PLENTY of sales calls to make this fall and winter at least... wondering how to get more people that I contact to move on securing their pipeline NOW.

 

[RebornPhoenix]

You are an inspiration to me, bro. Your journey, hard work, and persistence have been crazy! Best of luck on going solo (you can do it man)!

I am on a similar journey, albeit a few steps back. Your posts taught me to stop overthinking and take bloody action. Thanks a lot!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

Haven't given up- I will never give up, but it's been a rough past 6 weeks.
One project did come back and I locked down a month's worth of dayjob wages and I'm PRAYING he will give me large commercial referrals. Have more warm leads from earlier cold calls but with my experience so far I feel like most of these "warm" leads are just piss in the wind because I call and they start sh!tting out excuses to why they can't have a project anymore. Ran out of people to call using my prospecting as well so I switched to cold e-mail and working through that.

Honestly feel like hell, I pushed myself to the limits making almost three thousand cold calls in the past half year and had a pretty bad health scare that culminated in a specialist telling me I'd need to go for a looong MRI if my symptoms got any worse. Most of the last month was peeling back the intensity, working smart, and being mindful and meditating and taking more time for myself and hobbies like hiking.

Got to go to BNI and I feel that BNI will probably have to be my saving grace once I take this full time. Met some great business owners and they like me but can't go until I quit my dayjob. Feeling really bitter as of late given that I've put two years of my life into webdesign and I feel like I've only gotten piss in my face when I saw another TFF member start WD this February, have everyone on the forum popping into his thread and offering encouragement, and all of a sudden he's getting bukkake'd with five-figure projects.
I've struggled and stressed to try and figure out why I haven't seem the same level of success, to me it keeps coming back to the limitations of working around my dayjob- I will not give up, but I will not throw a paycheck away until I lock down solid projects and can expect referrals and to make a living despite record inflation and the threat of an economic crash.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk /s- I know there's a light at the end of the sh!t tunnel but damn I don't know when these tribulations will end.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

There's good days and then not so good days.
Like Andy just mentioned, I changed my mindset to "I'm just reaching out and offering help to people who I believe need it". This really helped with just picking up the phone. These calls aren't scary now, I simply have value to offer and want to help, but in the morning they're still slightly unnerving to think about, I feel apprehensive.
I just use the same technique I do for setting doc or blood donation appointments, I just pick up the phone and start dialing before I can think about it, come what may.
And with that, had a BIG surprise today.

----------------------------------------
I did 15 calls in total, had the bad luck of hitting mostly receptionists today.
The rest of the calls were either VMs or "not interested".
Only had one outright no, and that guy wasn't even rude, just "Nah I appreciate it but we're fine. *hangup*"

I did have a surprise that almost killed me, I found a directory on a backpage of one of these sites, I simply called the phone number and did my quick script.
"Do you know who I am?"
Oh sh!t! I thought.
"I'm hoping someone with --------- company, this is just the number I found on the site."
"Awwww crap, my secretary must have done that"
Turns out I had accidentally called the big boss business owner who owned the franchise I called and multiple others.
He said he was making more money than he could want at the moment, but took down my info because he was "thinking of" a new project and wanted to get ahead of it, told me he respected my hustle for having the stones to do these cold calls as well.

After the call, he started TEXTING ME and asked for my e-mail and my agency site (not up yet).
I sent over a past project, let him know if he had questions he could reach out, and that I was doing free website audits so if he or someone he knew wanted a second opinion or suggestions, I'd be glad to help.

I felt pretty beaten down by the dismissals by the 14th call, I thought "what the hell" and made a 15th to a site out in the rich part of town.
A receptionist picked up.
"SH!T!" I thought to myself
Swallowed, gave my quick lines and followed up with a pain point: "Even if you don't want the info I was going to send, I did have one easy thing to make sure your potential clients could get to your site that y'all can do for free, so traffic doesn't get a security warning when they go to your site".
Surprisingly, the receptionist put me on hold for 2 minutes, came back, and asked for my info.
Is this an in?

---------------------------------------
Next actions:
- Rebuild my list of leads so I have about 25-35 good ones (hopefully without receptionists!) I can call tomorrow
- Examine my cold call script, think over my interactions with gatekeepers and how to win trust and get more to allow me through or take down my info
- Finish out my agency website


It's weird because I don't feel scared, just mildly apprehensive, I only hope to get some more nibbles and finally a bite so I can really get the wind back into my sales (er... sails I mean ).
Wish me luck, we're all gonna make it.

 

[ZCP]

Love the action here. Proud of you!

Suggest borrowing from the Gap and Gain book ....
at the end of each day, write down 3 wins for the day. Then write down what your 3 wins will be tomorrow.
Do for two weeks and see if it helps!

You got this!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Black_Dragon43]

Hey @RicardoGrande nice to see you taking action on this and making your dreams happen!

Cold calling can be brutal indeed, so well done sticking with the 50 calls per week. I’m just wondering here if there aren’t better ways for you than cold calling.

It seems like you’re constantly fighting yourself with it, and suppose that you do succeed and make sales in the short term, that’s no sustainable way to build a business.

What you need is leads which are more qualified so you don’t just waste your time calling random dudes. The problem here is that you’re spending a lot of time (more than it would be worth it) on people who may not even be in the market for what you’re selling at all. So instead of focusing on sales, you’re wasting your time with people who would never buy anyway.

Remember, your time is your most valuable resource. Money also translates into time. If you can’t use your time well, you won’t be able to make money ECONOMICALLY - in a way that’s profitable. The goal here shouldn’t be just make $4K in a month, it should be make $4K with a time investment that’s sufficiently low to permit you to scale your business and invest in others areas of your life.

There are automated systems that can do your prospecting for you, without paying for ads or investing your time. Then you only speak to people who are qualified. I sell one in the forum, which you can check out. There are also other approaches which are more likely to give you better time efficiency.

Also you need to organise your business much better it seems to me… do you have a niche that you’re going after? Do you know what problems they’re facing? Once you figure this stuff out you could hang around in groups on FB or LI where such people are likely to be and provide help to them. Not just about what you’re selling but about their whole life. And from time to time when you see people need what you’re selling then pitch to them.

I don’t know the details but I’d wagger that the reason you’re struggling is because you’re trying to make sales work with an unstable business foundation. Without clarity about WHO you serve and WHAT PROBLEMS you solve. And all this causes you to waste time on activities that have a low reward compared to the time spent. They are not economical, in other words.

 

[RicardoGrande]

800$ sale with 50$/mo maint today.
Working on the statement of work and first invoice.
Still making cold calls, minorly worried about fed tanking the markets tomorrow but I just sold a website in the depths of the recession and I have prospects in my pipeline.
I'm one happy camper right now.

Hi mate,

Currently doing the same as yourself, but a few steps behind. However, I want to give some input regarding targeting customers and maybe some markets which would hold value.
[...]

Best of luck, feel free to reach out

Aye good stuff mate.
I have my foot in the door with one or two metal shops. In my area at least, they seem to be very established and running off of referrals but occasionally I'll find a secretary that knows their site is @$$ and hindering them.
You had a good point about electricians, I've been reaching out as well but in my area no one my age seems to want to work so they usually complain they have too much work but no hands on deck and then offer me a job since I show initiative lol.

Best of luck, I'll pop a vb to your success later this week.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

Still with it, still on calls.
Nothing is a given but fell backwards into a potential project and that biz owner has a friend who needs a site as well and they want to meet at his office sometime this week.

I'm finding I'm struggling to get my existing sites out while having to do my dayjob. Sure I can wake up early, but I have to re-orient, work for two hours, go to job, get back and eat, re-orient, work for two hours, go to sleep.... you get the idea.
It's tough being stranded in limbo where I don't know for sure how well this would go so I don't quit... but then I don't have enough time to really sit down and focus on any of the projects or having 8 hours to work and 4 to learn.
If we had any other economy I'd feel perfectly fine quitting and making this work. With the way the world is and emerging riots in europe, energy shortage, and tumults in the market that the fed is trying to strangle to death... that easy ride doesn't seem to be open.

I guess we all get challenged when we need it most.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RicardoGrande]

Still at it, more payments from clients!
Fell into a better and more productive flow again, but contending with the dayjob is still a spirit-breaker that keeps tossing me off my game and tanking my outlook/mindset.
Mainly fighting mindset and negativity, especially when I'm at work and even if I can sneak in some cold calls, I keep having "What do you think you're doing? You're throwing a away a career and a safe paycheck to go be a web designer??? What about the great depression 2.0 that's about to happen?" .

The above is hyperbole but it is quite the fight and I'm doing everything I can to reign that in and switch to a more positive outlook and visualization- something even Connor McGregor's coach says is almost necessary for any great endeavor. If anyone has tips on mindset btw pls shoot me a DM, my main strategy right now is a mixture of the techniques from Tony Robbin's PPII and Some of Scott Adam's advice along with mindfulness.

Right now, just getting back from about a month I took off from the side-biz because of surgery, working through my old leads and noticing either ghosting or they've started talking to other WDs.
I even LOST a client I had a verbal agreement for a 1250$ buildout too... but I called him up and he says he still wants to talk next week so- who knows what's going to happen?

My main takeaway is to be more serious about getting people in for appointments, and that I really need to either ditch the dayjob or find someone I can offload all the web-design work itself off to so I can focus on SELLING. Also finding out that selling-selling is different than telephone prospecting/cold calling... but I welcome the challenge.

Hoping, praying, and working my @$$ off that the next post I make here is about a WIN

 

[RicardoGrande]

Still with it, making more calls than ever.

Outreach
Changed up my approach to what Chris from ANW was using to send video audits. Since I'm not trying to force a sale people are less mean and more open and want to establish a relationship- but I'm also not finding out if they need work now and I'm even kissing a few frogs who will take the loom video audit and then turnaround to their current webmaster.
This is just how she goes, I'm planting seeds, I just need to keep up.

On the flipside of calling, now that I'm so close to being able to quit my job (but for real), I realized I need to upgrade both my prospecting and my outreach since they currently eat up to about an hour of time a day if I'm not careful. Teaching myself to use apollo and trying to work cold e-mails a bit more often. I'm on the fence if I need a new domain to e-mail from (In my opinion the current one I have is a bit meh but it has some good domain age and works for my local area).

Thanks to the advice of a forum member, I've also been stopping and talking/handing my biz card to local businesses I see out in the wild (I don't care of it's an angry bodybuilder in a contractor's truck- he's getting a handshake and a card) and doing walk ins- not too much from that yet.

Projects
Wrapping up my last two clients and ready to bust out my own site (I need, NEED to get it up and start it ranking) and plug my portfolio in.
Following this, I've been brushing up on my actual design skills since the site design itself is my biggest time sink atm. Watching videos, people in Ran Segall's school can whip up a sexy-looking one page site in under 20 minutes- if I can get even half of that ability I'll be sitting good.

Networking
The only major undertaking I have on my plate right now is that I'm considering joining BNI- It's not a guarantee of success but every last person I know who joined seemed to have at least doubled their income and work due to the referrals.
There are free networking groups and local tradesmen's groups but those are during work hours. They will be available once I leave the dayjob and I'll be able to work them.

As long as I can do good work, complete projects, and upgrade my prospecting and learn how to do invoices and network... I should be in a good place.
Just got to get to the point where the referrals start coming in- multiple of the people I cold called who had to hustle in the beginning told me this- and never give up until that point. Still in the fight.

 

[Robdavis]

I'm absolutely amazed right now because I am closer to being able to quit and do this than I've ever been. Despite this, I've never felt more apprehension and fear and it's blowing my mind.
I have closed deals and people that want to sit for sales calls to see how I can help - wish I could've closed them before then but I barely have any time as is with the dayjob so I'll need to just quit, reconnect, and figure it out as I go from there.

The biggest thing I've been grappling with is that I'll be unplugging from the matrix and exiting the script.

I've been having a similar problem with getting nervous about getting started and I've realized that the problem is that we are falling into "event thinking".
In other words you are taking the task of quitting, which is actually an easy thing to do and blowing it out of proportion. So for example you are claiming that if you quit you are exiting the script, this isn't necessarily true because you could always go and get another job.
It might be good for you to think of this as process thinking where quitting simply becomes a simple task that you need to do in order to grow your business to provide a reasonable income for yourself. But in order to reach that point there would be many other tasks eg. sales and delivery to do that also matter.
The event thinking tricks us into believing that certain tasks are a "big deal" when really they aren't, they are just another step on the journey that we are taking.
Thinking that a step is a "big deal" encourages us to think too much about that step or to become anxious or change our minds just before we experience the success that we want.

 

[Andy Black]

Was at my job today with a signed resignation but saw the "YoU DOn'T HavE to be a FReELanCeR" thread where even Lex D was railing against freelancing and got depressed... pussied out. I have been good at inventing hypochondria symptoms too but maybe I just didn't feel ready... maybe I should've just had more faith in myself. Going to see how much I can do on my current projects, currently trying to oversubscribe to contracts on my plate to force myself to quit.

All this took a long damn time and I thought about either giving up or kidnapping Fox to make him refund my course fee over these past two years but the most important lesson I wasn't getting until now was to never give up.

I think the lesson from that thread is to back yourself and create your own path.

 

[Choate]

Ugh, have these three proposals out right now that would replace 3 months of day job pay and I want to work on. After speaking with each of the owners these past two weeks, agreeing to a project/price and challenging them repeatedly "Okay, and you acknowledge that the budget will be x because you wanted y?" or "Okay, so we just wrapped up on this call, from 1 - 10 how secure are you in the knowledge that I will be able to deliver and from 1-10 how ready are you ready to get the proposal/invoice and start?" and getting 9s/10s... but here I am waiting days/weeks later.

What kind of questions are these? Not only are they too blunt, but I can't see these fitting into the sales process. Your questions should be about discovering problems. Especially the question asking the client if they think you will deliver... that's just detracting overall.

Got to go to BNI and I feel that BNI will probably have to be my saving grace once I take this full time. Met some great business owners and they like me but can't go until I quit my dayjob. Feeling really bitter as of late given that I've put two years of my life into webdesign and I feel like I've only gotten piss in my face when I saw another TFF member start WD this February, have everyone on the forum popping into his thread and offering encouragement, and all of a sudden he's getting bukkake'd with five-figure projects.

A whole two years? Did you know you are up against guys who have been on WordPress for 10-15 years and in website development longer than that? The market doesn't care about them and it doesn't care about you either. And it certainly doesn't care that other forum members getting 'bukkake'd with work'. Focus on you and solving problems.

The market also doesn't care that you want to replace your work income with these big projects.

Couple issues I see here:

1) Mindset

2) Sales channel - I was in a web developer hour long lunch chat two weeks ago with a lot of agency owners and one guy who was particularly prominent was getting asked a lot of questions. He was against cold calling. He puts himself out there as much as possible but doesn't cold call. I think you need to be where your customers are already looking, and more often than not that's not going to be over the phone.

3) Sales process - Have you been in a sales development role before? It's nuanced and pounding out 100 calls a day doesn't mean a thing if you aren't refining your process in the right direction.

What's your personal website?

 

[ChocolateFactory]

Maybe your value proposition is just not good? I can’t imagine why I would want to pay for a pretty website - even if you were really good, which I’m skeptical about. Not to shit on your business idea, but if it’s not even your day job, I find it hard to believe you would be very good at it? It sounds a bit like you’re doing it because it’s easy. If it’s easy, where’s the E from CENTS?
Maybe you could have more success if you offer a commission deal? “You pay us $200 and 10% of every new lead we bring you through the website.”
That could get me interested. For anything else, I can use Wix or Squarespace and just do it myself. Or maybe I wouldn’t be able to, but that’s what I would think. Web design is so 2000… I think you have to offer a complete package that includes digital marketing and a sort of success guarantee. People are interested in value, not things.
Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I think you have to drastically change your approach, not just keep doing more of the same. You’ve been doing this for a long time now and it’s obviously not working the way you’re going about it. “Everybody’s struggling” - that’s absolutely possible, but that doesn’t put a single additional dollar in your pocket. I don’t think encouragement helps you, you should realize what you’re doing isn’t working, so you have to change something. You also sound (understandably) frustrated, that makes selling even more difficult than it is to begin with. Maybe you should start with doing something about your day job, since it sounds like it’s costing you a lot of energy doing something you don’t like. Just my 0.02.