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Exiting the cubicle farm and taking Web-Design full time

RicardoGrande

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At or well over 500 calls at this point.
Made another sale last week.
New sales call for today.
Need to follow up with a potential large contract.
Have a handful more businesses that want to look at their web presence... but in december or january.

I don't mind making the calls and I like facing down my fear and talking to biz owners, but for the scale I need, I don't think what I'm doing now is the way to go.
I need clients who are willing to spend 2-3k if not more, and then for a monthly maintenance plan if not a monthly upsell like SEO or FB ads. The businesses I would like to work with and could be a small-mid size commercial business, and coincidentally, have enough employees to warrant a gatekeeper. The gatekeeper introduces enough complexity to where I haven't been calling those businesses, or failing to get through because I don't have enough information to try and blast through.
I'm loosely aware of the book "Smart calling", it will take more time and it may give me analysis paralysis, but it'd be good if I could start getting decision maker names and blowing through gatekeepers of mid-size commercial interests instead of the sole props.

CONVERSELY: I've been told it's good to establish a base and build a referral network. Currently getting guidance from an FWS member who used cold calling to get himself a living after covid hit. I have a lot of doubts, but if he can do it, I know I can do it too as long as I stick with it... so maybe sticking with the small fish and building up isn't the worst thing to do?

Now that I have work to do though, I'm really finding the utility in using things like Trello to make sure I'm not only prospecting but also doing the ACTUAL WORK for my ACTUAL CLIENTS now hahaha.
 
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RicardoGrande

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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.
 
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2dads

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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.



  • Electricians/Plumbers – at least here in Australia earn good money, need a website for: “social proof” that they are not a fly by the night tradesman etc. I am working with one now - electrician, a full re design, Google Ad’s, and marketing campaign.
Going forward it will be constant monthly updates, building SEO to target keywords for his market.



  • Metal Fabrication Work shops – a lot like the electricians/plumbers. They can make some good money, average cost on the jobs can be very high (I work in the stainless steel industry) – I have my first paid job/warm lead lined up for a new one in my area.


  • Driving schools – Cut throat market here, however if you can find one with an outdated website, sell the convenience of online booking and package buying this could be a good target market.


  • Dentures/Dentist - I know dentist get targeted a lot due to $$$, however drill down to what they make the most $$$ on – I had a loved one get dentures done, price was $$$$ however worth every cent. A big pain factor, if you combine that with a solution you should be onto a winner.


I know you may have already thought or targeted the above, these are just some markets in my very brief time (last few weeks) have gave me some strong feedback.



Best of luck, feel free to reach out
 

RicardoGrande

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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.
 
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2dads

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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.




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.
Good man,

With the Electricians, find out what is the most profitable work.

Lot of electricians are busy - but not busy with the high profit margin business.

Small Reno jobs might bring in say $xxxx

However home automation small reno jobs bring in an extra 30-40% for the same time, same risk etc

A tailored website which showcases their work will bring in more of these customers. I know a lot of electricians who are busy and turn work away, if you have that much work - UP the price, be selective and long term you can work less & earn more.

My client finds new shed builds - supply of trenching, power from the main (ENERGEX) and insolation as his most profitable work and most rewarding work. This is one of the markets we are targeting on his site & google ads (I will post the results in a few weeks when we are up and going)

Work smarter = Not Harder
 

RicardoGrande

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Got a callback from a biz owner I was playing phone tag with.
I pitched him using my hyper-deadly business owner super seduction mega-quadrangle pitch.
"Huh... I guess that sounds interesting... hey do you do web design by the way? My site's kinda sh!t."

I have no words :rofl: back to the drawing board on the prospecting pitch, thankful for the business at least.
 

RicardoGrande

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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.
 
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spiritus corpus

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I worked in a UK design agency for 7 years. Getting new clients for a new business is HARD!

The business I was in was well established for over 25 years so they get plenty of recommendations and word of mouth referals.

New business was nearly all organic.

Whenever we tried to push for new business we hit brick walls.

The problem wasn't that we weren't professional enough or had no credibility it is just that many business owners suffer from apathy and inertia.

I even tried an experiment where I targetted 15-20 local businesses that either had no website presence or a very poor and dated website. We offered to give them a brand new site (template based) and then THEY could choose how much they wanted to pay us bearing in mind we were working on a simple 5 page website for them.

No-one was interested.

Have you considered niching down?

For example, only targetting primary schools or football coaching or pubs, etc?
 

RicardoGrande

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I worked in a UK design agency for 7 years. Getting new clients for a new business is HARD!

The business I was in was well established for over 25 years so they get plenty of recommendations and word of mouth referrals.
Whenever we tried to push for new business we hit brick walls.

No-one was interested.
Have you considered niching down?
For example, only targetting primary schools or football coaching or pubs, etc?
Hey Spiritus! Thanks for stopping by.
Hahaha glad to hear even existing agencies have the same problem and it's been around for awhile.
I need to niche, but right now I have two goals
1) Get first projects out the door, get results and learn about MRR-cultivating add ins like SEO
2) Learn how to work around my dayjob while learning and taking action with sales until I can make enough $$$ to quit job

I will NEED to niche down and change my prospecting system (My "niche" are local contractors at the moment) but I'm still learning how to work and get projects and building momentum. Also have a big backlog of jobs atm. Either way sticking with it and trying to keep my MINDSET up because the economy is in flames right now and I think I chose the signal worst (best?) time to start cold calling a thousand local businesses hahaha.
 

spiritus corpus

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I think I chose the signal worst (best?) time to start cold calling a thousand local businesses hahaha.
Yes and no.

When you're pitching you could always tell them that now is THE best time to ensure their website is upto scratch as they don't want to lose anymore business then they have to.

Also maybe give them examples of their competitors and how their websites compare to others.

For me personally, I would stay away from trying to help other businesses make money. Their apathy frustrated the hell out of me.

I would use my skills to build content or affiliate sites or simply flip sites for money
 
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RicardoGrande

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Late October Update:
Still on the ball, still calling, still getting incidental interest.
Accidentally fell into a full sales call for what would be my biggest single project payment yet.

The problem?
I'm still stuck on a project from the middle of september.
It's not an excuse, but it is hell to wake up at 5 am to squeeze out work, go to a soul-sucking job, come back, and expect to still be able to focus work. A big part of it is on me for not being able to cut out mindless browsing; however, I've been trying to do my damn best and reign in my ADHD and sneak in some WD learning while at work, but sooner or later I really need to cut the golden handcuffs and take this full time.

In other news: Ran the calcs for budgeting for the first few months without a dayjob and was able to get my daily food budget back down to about 7-9$ a day again, nutritious, low carb, high protein. What scared me is that this would've been 4-5$/day in 2019, and wondering if inflation will persist or skyrocket is keeping me fearful, unresourceful, and tied to this dayjob.
 

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The problem?
I'm still stuck on a project from the middle of september.
Did I read this right? You have time to prospect but no time to fulfill existing client work? You might want to consider outsourcing one of those two. Depends which skill you prefer and are more competent in.

but sooner or later I really need to cut the golden handcuffs and take this full time.
Not a popupar opinion on here but if you think a lack of time, energy, and attention is hindering your journey then go for it. You can always get another job.
 

RicardoGrande

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Did I read this right? You have time to prospect but no time to fulfill existing client work?
You did! For some reason, I have no problem digging up a list and sneaking in calls during my breaks at work (peak hours where I'm awake and have energy) and rejections are no problem, calling is fun. Cramming everything else into the other ends of the day is the troubling part. A friend has brought up outsourcing, it would probably be a good path for me, but I still think I can make it work if I can just streamline how I build/deploy sites and not have to sacrifice half of my sales to a freelancer.

For the job: I feel it, both of my mentors have full faith I can pull it off taking this full time, I know I have no problems doing CCs or walk ins and earning the living- but I'm sketched out about what could happen to the economy and if everything would get rugpulled at a moment's notice (Usually a B.S. excuse but we have a lot of unprecedented crises racing towards an explosive conclusion at the moment :frown:).
 
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RicardoGrande

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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 :)
 

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RicardoGrande

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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.
 
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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
 

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RicardoGrande

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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.
 

RicardoGrande

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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)
 

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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!
 
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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.
 
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RicardoGrande

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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.
 

RicardoGrande

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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.
 
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Wombat

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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.
Thank you for documenting your progress. It's inspirational.
I've recently started with Fox's training and want to ditch my wage-slave job as soon possible. You've put a lot of helpful gold in this thread!
All the best to you for going full time.
 

RicardoGrande

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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.
 
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RicardoGrande

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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.
 

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Have you thought about moving to a monthly only payment model?

So starting people off for a website, $0 down and a site built, hosted, and supported for $99-$249/mo? I saw online someone doing a similar business model for web design and having really good luck with it.

I think this could work better than an all at once price of $1,000+. Those 4 figure prices may scare some people away, but those same people might not be scared of $99.99/mo (which is $1,200 a year).
 

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