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.

 

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[davidpn]

Well done for all the things you've put into motion and also for starting this thread!
I'm looking forward to following your journey and seeing great things out of this. You got this man!

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

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[Andy Black]

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.

Thanks for the shoutout.

Have you worked your way through the inbound/sales braindump in my signature?

“Who already has your clients?”
(Jay Abraham)

 

[RicardoGrande]

Thanks for the shoutout.

Have you worked your way through the inbound/sales braindump in my signature?

“Who already has your clients?”
(Jay Abraham)

Hey Andy,

I was just editing in that you were super helpful and linked some resources over on the facebook.
Unfortunately my social circles/media are a bit dry. I'm still examining the running a workshop portion though.
Thanks for taking the time!

 

[Andy Black]

Hey Andy,

I was just editing in that you were super helpful and linked some resources over on the facebook.
Unfortunately my social circles/media are a bit dry. I'm still examining the running a workshop portion though.
Thanks for taking the time!

Maybe this post might help.

 

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[Itizn]

Cold call
Cold approach local businesses
Cold message on any socials

I've been in your position, and the way out is to promote the hell out of yourself.
You'd better be your biggest fan.

Lmk if you need any help with your outbound strategies.

 

[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]

As promised, got over myself and made 10 calls, went much differently than I expected, so far we have:
- 4 owners open to my e-mailing details about their sites
- 2 went to VM
- 1 full VM box
- 1 owner not available, asked to just send in an e-mail
- 1 owner already working on a site
- 1 angry receptionist slamming phone on me

Not bad, my lack of a sense of shame really helped, if I'll have a 40% "open to further discussion rate" as I keep doing this, I don't see any issues calling (Maybe it's because I accidentally made all the calls shirtless?(Don't ask.)).

NEXT ISSUE: I need to quickly put together a framework for making persuasive video audits with loom to get owners to TAKE ACTION and choose me.

AFTER THAT: Learn how to engage in a persuasive sales call.

 

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[Andy Black]

As promised, got over myself and made 10 calls, went much differently than I expected, so far we have:
- 4 owners open to my e-mailing details about their sites
- 2 went to VM
- 1 full VM box
- 1 owner not available, asked to just send in an e-mail
- 1 owner already working on a site
- 1 angry receptionist slamming phone on me

Not bad, my lack of a sense of shame really helped, if I'll have a 40% "open to further discussion rate" as I keep doing this, I don't see any issues calling (Maybe it's because I accidentally made all the calls shirtless?(Don't ask.)).

NEXT ISSUE: I need to quickly put together a framework for making persuasive video audits with loom to get owners to TAKE ACTION and choose me.

AFTER THAT: Learn how to engage in a persuasive sales call.

If it was a Zoom and the receptionist was a lady then I’m not surprised she slammed the phone down.

Anyway, well done taking action, and reframing it in your head so you’re doing people a disservice if you don’t reach out to them.


A question that always helps me:

“Who already has your clients?”
(Jay Abraham)

 

[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!

 

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[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]

Alright, probably last update for the week:

Went ahead and tried for another 15 calls today, some things are working, some things not.
11 actually went through.
Finally managed to get past a gatekeeper!
She literally put me on hold to go bring the owner of the practice over! I chalk it up to using a friendly then a flat and confident tonality and asking if she was the right person to talk to about the website, since I had this "e-mail" I was "about to send".

Then the owner came over.
Unfortunately, that owner, with his 16 year old website with no HTTPS that doesn't show on mobile correctly said something interesting:

"Hey are you our web guy?"
"Well I could be, had a few things I noticed and wrote some suggestions in an e-mail do you-"
"Hey thanks but we get 20 of these calls a day, I'm happy with my web guy, worked with him for like 16 years, thank you for your time *slam*".

It wasn't an uncourteous interaction, but I knew right then that I have definite, real competition in my area, and honing my approach will be the best way to get in front and get the opportunity to present value. This along with targeting less juicy areas of town that aren't as saturated with sales calls.

One thing I think hurt the most is that I didn't have a good full list of 40-50 leads to call like I did the other days, not only was I finding them one at a time in google maps, but at this point I was getting into the wealthy part of town that agencies from all over the area, if not the u.s., try to plunder by bugging business owners.
When I got a lukewarm or bad response, it changed my plan, I couldn't stick with "just call the next number on the list".

-----------------------------------
Kind of feeling like I'm in a tough spot right now, I just need to keep plugging away, don't want to form any opinions until I get around 250 calls.
Also noticing that impostor syndrome is really kicking in, found plenty of places with already decent sites or devs that made obvious mistakes, it was hard to call and say "hey I found this" when I don't even have my first paying client as of yet.
Yesterday a contact from a network meetup pointed a business owner my way, poor guy was sold on a brand new site and a huge ad spend but felt he could see no results, I just did triage and gave him basic advice, but heard back from the FB group that I need to try and go back and offer services, even if I may not know how to deliver everything he needs yet.

On that- I'll need to redouble my efforts with in person networking for sure at this point, I'm seeing referrals from 2 in person meetups but haven't seen anything tangible from the cold calls yet, but that could just be my momentum right now.

-------------------------
Overall don't feel the best about today, but I do have some important takeaways (Whenever I do win clients, they'll fight like hell to turn down web design sales pitches over the phone from other people lmao) and saw some of my changes work.

Jordan Belfort says that prospecting is deceptive, I may have made 45 calls so far with only 7 lukewarm responses, but there's a chance that only those 7 people are the ones who wanted or needed work on their sites, which means I could basically have a 100% success rate with these calls and not even know it.

Want to make some calls tomorrow but from what I've read, Friday's are bad days to cold call, I may try for 5 as throwaways anyways.
------------------------
Going forward:

For now, I need to REALLY focus on my pitch/value offer.
Getting my foot in the door with "hey I had x I was about to send" is okay, but everything melts down once a gatekeeper or owner asks what this is about or what I do (it seems to almost automatically engage the "we already have someone"script).

I'll be working on the audits I have lined up for now, and continue to go through resources like the FWS group or some of our member threads here (@GuitarManDan's thread is super helpful, esp seeing he was in a position like this just 4 years ago).
Working on site at my dayjob next week so I'll either need to put in my resignation notice or try to make calls during lunch (terrible idea but good to get over this anxiety I'm getting), we'll see how it goes, I have plenty in savings and wouldn't mind being able to test my mettle full time, but still want to see just one paying customer so I know this real.

Stuff kinda sucks right now lol, but I won't give up.


P.S. Current Cold call script
"Good Morning!
I'm Ricardo, I was about to send over this e-mail with a few details about the site, wanted to make sure it was cool to send it over. "
"Regarding what?"
(if receptionist) "These are a few things about the website, are you the right person to speak to about that?"
(with decision maker)"Good Morning -name-, I noticed a few things with your website that may be harming the value you're seeing out of it or blocking potential clients from even seeing it, I've put everything into a quick e-mail with a video going through each of the things"
From there it's either "ok" or "We're Good."

 

[Andy Black]

Building relationships is what works for me. I cold-called a handful of times only - a couple as a Google Ads guy (meh) and a couple with actual leads (those went really well).

Not saying not to cold call. Just wondering if doing more of what’s working might be better.

 

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[RicardoGrande]

Building relationships is what works for me. I cold called a handful of times only. A couple as a Google Ads guy (meh) and a couple with actual leads (those went really well).

Not saying not to cold call. Just wondering if doing more of what’s working might be better.

For sure, that in-person interaction, especially when you have the advantage or skills needed, can't be replaced. I've had my best interactions from just showing up to networking events or asking business owners about their operations when I visit say a cafe or the like.

Due to dayjob though, stuck with only 1 meetup a month I can go to, that goes to 9 total once I quit my job.
Appreciate that you pop in Andy, I know it's a lot of boring stuff in this thread rn.

 

[Paul David]

Well done on picking up the phone!

Have you read Alex Hormozi's Book:

$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel​

You could try coming up with an offer like: I can make some changes to your website and....

Win at least 10% more website sales—or it’s free.​

You can then try some other outreach methods like cold email, SMS, FB DM's, Instagram DM's.

 

[RicardoGrande]

Well done on picking up the phone!

Have you read Alex Hormozi's Book:

$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel​

You could try coming up with an offer like: I can make some changes to your website and....

Win at least 10% more website sales—or it’s free.​

You can then try some other outreach methods like cold email, SMS, FB DM's, Instagram DM's.

Elucidating pain or pleasure points is a good idea. I'm still tweaking my cold call script.
No site up yet as I finished my two portfolios and immediately started going to networking and trying the cold calling.
FB DMs or offering help in FB groups is my next target, seeing how current ads work is first.
Thanks for popping in mate!

 

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[RicardoGrande]

Got the stones and made my last 5 calls.
That's 50 calls in one week, most I EVER did before was 4 before I lost the nerve.
The very last one gave me a yes and even gave me an e-mail to contact directly!

Learned a lot of important lessons, it's weird, because I take action, hit a wall, find info to get around it... I feel like the advanced terminator from terminator 2, adapting to my environment.

Most important takeaways:
- Prospect well and build a list, the list of numbers you can just work through helps to build momentum.
- Don't take it personally: It's not the 100 you call, but the 2 or 3 who are actually in need of someone like you.
- Receptionists are a blessing or a curse, being warm yet confident helps, build trust or simply lay into them with "Hi I have X details for the site... would you be the best person to talk to, or will you need to forward me to someone else?"
- If it sounds like you're on the line with a female receptionist over 50, you probably only have a 8% chance of success, they will also be very... "creative" with ways to dismiss you and slam the phone.
- USE A SCRIPT: I went in with bare-butt enthusiasm and plenty of "Umms...", went ahead and wrote a script, and even gamed out some things like simple objections, or throwing in a pain point to win over the owner if I was blessed to be on the line with them.
- Youtube has a good wealth of videos, some bad, some good, I took a trick of asking "How ya been?" from a warm-lead insurance caller and it surprisingly seemed to work
- Keep testing

Hope this helps,
Pardon all the word vomit in this thread, I'm trying to leave the breadcrumb trail I wish I had right now as I fight through this stage.
If you have questions or want suggestions for your calls or to practice with someone, hit me up.

 

[davidpn]

...
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.
...

Solid advice!

Good job on taking action and getting over the cold calling fear. All it takes is 1 yes and you'll get that big first step of traction you're after.

Keep it up and keep going!

 

[RicardoGrande]

Solid advice!

Good job on taking action and getting over the cold calling fear. All it takes is 1 yes and you'll get that big first step of traction you're after.

Keep it up and keep going!

Thanks David!


-----------------------------
In TMF , MJ specifically talks about the desert of desertion.
I'm not working on a productocracy in this thread, but definitely feeling the desert part.

Sent out a blast of video audits to the people that sounded interested last week and haven't heard anything back... I can't believe I put on a shirt for nothing

Sneaking in a lot of sales reading at work (100m offers, gap selling, challenger sale), and managed to reach back out to a local salesman (just got promoted to assistant sales manager and he's only 23) and we've scheduled a quick call for this evening where I'll get to pick his brain on the topic of cold outreach.

!!!Old lead came back and affirmed he DOES want to work with me... but not for at least 2 more weeks (elated and then sad trumpet sound).
Right now since I'm stuck onsite at work this week, I'm just trying to mop up some UI/UX courses while I'm trapped at work (get a faster workflow, INCREASE value offered by sites), and finish out my agency site in the evenings/morning to plug some ads into to see how they go.

Never give up y'all.

 

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[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]

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.

[...]

Hey Tanda!
Haven't talked to you in a hot minute.

This post has a lot of good points, I'll just lay out where I'm at and what I'm needing to do, and maybe my actions so far will make more sense.

Ground level:
1) Still working a dayjob at 50 hours a week, eats up most of my waking hours and have to pick and choose tasks to do per day (slooowwwww progress).
2) I get very few opportunities to make calls during business hours, I haven't had the chance to setup an e-mail to mail with yet and sort of don't want to shell out 60$/mo for mail and lead gen tools. Even if I could, I would have to choose between that or setting up my own site or a client site in my very limited time.
3) Calling doesn't scale, but I'm prospecting to likely businesses. I'm in the awkward phase after portfolio clients but before paying clients. I've only worked with two industries and based on the experiences of my group and the other TFF web dev guys here, it would behoove me to spread my wings, work with a few different industries to cut my chops, THEN niche down. With my prospecting system, I'm only digging up people that even the average person would say are in need of my services, so I have a strong in off the bat.
4) Yes, I don't have any business machinery because I'm throwing all of this together on the fly. In the end it's just Acquire client > buildout > check > go live, everything so far is just the "acquire client"phase.

I don't mind the calls (at least as long as I get better) and love the few meetups I can go to around my job schedule. People harp on ads and traffic but I'm months out before the site I built can rank for anything... I would rather just sharpen my sales skills and erase my sense of shame by running calls until I get one or two clients for now.
This business is my halfway house from being a cubicle cretin to a business owner with the right skill stack (seeking opportunity, delegating, sales, lead gen and conversion) and 50 extra hours a week I've never had before, for the next business I'm aiming to start.

You're really laying down rock-solid information that I've seen echoed by many other strong posters on this forum. I know it's piss-a$$ annoying when one tries to help someone and they stay stuck in their own ways, but everything I'm doing is new. Now, if I'd been doing this for 6 months and had no results I'd be hopping on your tools and suggestions. As it stands, I'm only a week into active outreach, so I'll continue with my current plan and re-evaluate and re-visit your post in time.
Hope that more explains it. Not optimal, not standard, not even a "business", just one guy making it happen before dawn and after dusk.

Thanks again man.

------------------------------------------------

General update
Salesman from a network meetup I went to back in Feb came through, he actually sat with me for about 75 minutes yesterday going over my current cold out reach method (touch based), and gave me feedback and anecdotes with his experiences pushing for a more classic sales-based (if they're on the phone, sell them NOW) system. I have about 3 pages of notes including some reworked scripts we worked, looking forward to using them this upcoming week

 

[RicardoGrande]

After speaking with a few WDs that were able to make it back in the day, I went back to cold calling as of last Teusday.

Calling 6 days a week monday-saturday, so far 140 calls in.
The past three days I'm sitting in my 105f degree car making calls before my work lunchbreak ends.
Most of the numbers I find tend to be bad, but I have 8 tentative sales calls over the next few months from the 60 or so people that did pick up, with the last few in January.

Calling now, with the new methods (god bless the UK's most hated sales trainer on youtube) has been atrociously fun. Not every day is perfect, but I'm running into people that can respect my gumption and offer tips, to pass referrals, or want to have the sales convo.
Surprisingly, I accidentally called up my city's version of @Johnny boy (22 year old drop out who now runs a 3m$/yr construction company) and we got to chat for a bit and he gave me a referral and I'm going to buy him dinner and pick his brain on the operations side of entrepreneurship hopefully this month. It's the interactions like these- that'd I'd never have if I just kept wasting my time f---ing around with learning coding or "trying" e-mail outreach- that I'm enjoying the most.

And ALL I have to do to keep up this great momentum is not pussy out and stop cold calling like I did in April
Hopefully more juicy content by next posting

 

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[Itizn]

Call reluctance is certainly bitch when you first start picking up the phones.

Sounds like you've for the most part conquered that initial hurdle?

 

[RicardoGrande]

Call reluctance is certainly bitch when you first start picking up the phones.

Sounds like you've for the most part conquered that initial hurdle?

Lol yeah I hope so.
I noticed I had the same level of fear (rapid heart beat, slight trembling, had to pace around) for calls that I used to for donating blood. I remembered my cure for that had been to not think about it and just sign up and go do it without thinking about much about it.

So basically, last Monday I had just:
- Committed to making calls
- Built a list I could run through
- Had an idea of when I wanted to call, and would just whip out the phone and already dial a number before I could THINK about what I was doing

The rest is just trying to learn and internalize how the calls go, I've been told it gets instinctual after awhile.

 

[Johnny boy]

Surprisingly, I accidentally called up my city's version of @Johnny boy (22 year old drop out who now runs a 3m$/yr construction company)

$5 says it's his dad's company. Nothing wrong with it, just a guess.

 

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[RicardoGrande]

Alright, 2 weeks and roughly 270 calls, 51 of those today.
Maybe not as delightful as the first week when I ran into a lot of nice business owners, but still doable nonetheless.
Not even really scared of the phone at this point (not shaking, not experiencing as much anxiety) but I do notice I'll procrastinate on clearing my quota.

I'm supposed to have TWO sales conversations over the next week, looking forward to it and building out mock-ups for both and if they don't work out I'll convert them to portfolio pieces on my site.

One NICE surprise was taking out the young construction owner out to lunch. It was amazing, he was telling me so much about how he had to get started multiple times, going from window washing to painting and then into construction, and as it sits he has multiple trucks and crews under him. He kept re-stating that there are SO many ways to make money- if you know where to look, how to provide value, and can get in front of people.
What I didn't expect is when he flipped it on me and started reccing I find a way to get into running local business FB ads, he pulled out his phone and ran the math and said that I could be in LIFE-CHANGING money pretty quick just running ads for 10 people a month, and it'd be a good way to get out of my dayjob and get more business exposure. It's been something I've been reading into since.

Now, I'm not magically rolling in dough and adoring fans after two weeks but I'm just keeping up with the calling. Going back and forth with a FWS student who got his start hitting the calls and he's been giving me some coaching which has been helping.
Hopefully can come back with a juicier update!

 

[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.