Fresh Start, No More @$#%# Action-Faking!

[JustKris]

What's up Fastlaners,

When I first joined this forum 3 years ago, I was all over the place. I wanted to write a novel, make a movie, do a product placement business, and a million other things. And the thread definitely reflected the action-faking and scatter-brained approach.

So here's where I'm at now:

I've been at a B2B software/telecom company for the past few years. Over the past 1.5 years, I developed (i.e., stumbled upon) a really strong webinar marketing strategy that has had incredible results. Some highlights: boosting new sales over 70%, the company jumping 1000 places on the INC 5000, and completely eliminating cold-calling for the sales team.

I've also made more money than I've made in my life, which brought me to a strange "A HA!" moment. I bet most people jump to the Fastlane after a crappy job, but I've worked tons of crappy jobs and endured. It was only until now, when my job is about as good as it gets, that I realized I'm just not built to work for other people.

The pivot

Since January, I've been consulting with some clients in my spare time---both to get money and to get case studies for a Fastlane venture. I wrote a book and developed an online course that lays out everything I've learned. And it's all REAL, actionable info---not phony "make money online" bullshit.

This is the first time I've had something that FELT like a real business. Clients approaching me out of the blue, making money, and feeling proud of what I've done.

(Shout out to @Joe Cassandra, who is also about to launch his course and have his second child. The clock is ticking!)

Action Steps

I have a sales page for the course done. I'm ready to launch. I'm also building out my main website, to have an overall "umbrella" for the consulting side.

I also have a couple of lead magnets ready, as well. Now it's time to build out the funnel for my most important client: myself.

The goal is simple: Get the first sale before my daughter arrives, which could be any day now.

Let's goooooooooooooo!

 

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[JustKris]

After six weeks of running around like a madman, I finally have some time to hop on the forum. I missed reading all of your threads!

The TL;DR version of events:

My family and I moved cross-country. It's been an amazing change from the grind of LA. (Probably a lot like how MJ felt moving from Chicago to Arizona)

I feel like I can breathe here. Plus, our four bedroom house costs less than our crummy 2 bedroom apartment.

I'm consulting with a few different companies, one of whom is a former employer. I also have calls this week regarding another potential offer.

It's been a dramatic shift. Today I worked for a bit, ran errands, took my son to soccer, then worked on my novel. No hour-long commute, no boring meetings, no work drama.

I realize this is the decompression zone between the Slowlane and Fastlane existence. It's not the end game. You can't get rich earning a hundred bucks an hour, even if it is in your boxer shorts on a Monday evening.

But for me, it has been a necessary step. Just the mindset shift---not just intellectually knowing, but having a visceral understanding that it's possible to live life on your own terms---has been incredible.

Now it's time to build something that scales and leverages systems instead of my individual effort. No idea what that is yet. I'm just staying open and paying attention.

 

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[JustKris]

Website is looking great. Looking forward to hitting the ground running in a couple weeks. Why a couple weeks?

We had a "surprise launch" over a week early---my wife is in labor! So we are at the hospital, getting ready.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[JustKris]

Haha, thanks. Definitely took a couple days off when we first got home from the hospital. But now I'm just working off my laptop while the baby sleeps.

My goal is to have steady consulting clients/course sales by January 1 and be fully free by March.

 

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[JustKris]

Yo, TFF!

On track for the biggest month yet, almost double what I was making at my Slowlane job. Plus I got to finally fire my old employer (it was amicable).

Really enjoying UnrealCreative's thread about creating a productized service. I've been on the same tack, honing in on the 3-4 highly leveraged services that deliver the most impact.

One of my clients even pitched me to his investor (a larger tech company) to do some work for them, which is really neat.

Also hired my first VA (virtual assistant). It's been quite a relief to farm out some of the busywork and free up time.

Holding off on going into eComm or building a SaaS for now. Scaling my fledgling agency has been yielding great results and it seems silly to change course now.

Focusing on building real processes, concrete systems, that I can use as a guide for hiring employees and eventually taking myself out of the day-to-day of the business.

The goal? To be the ghost in the machine...the machine that I built.

 

[Joe Cassandra]

Get it dawg!

Webinars are hot right now...so there will be plenty of people (even businesses) who need mega-help with webinars.

I know in the future, I'll be wanting to try some webinars. Keep it up!

[It's funny, because my goal is to become a screenwriter in the end...and you're moving away from that to where we both are now...haha!]

 

[JustKris]

On a roll! Sales funnel is really coming together. The market research has made a massive difference.

And I can't believe how good the coach I've hired has been---once I'm up and running and I'm going to structure my consulting the same way. It's not rah-rah bullshit, it's all actionable and super-concrete stuff. I've gotten more done in the past week than I have the prior 2 months.

Speaking of coaching, I've had a blast doing some free coaching calls for businesses. It's so fun to apply these principles to different industries.

It's also had a tremendous impact on my mood. Even though I'm running on 4 hours of sleep a night, helping with a newborn, and working on my business during every free moment---I feel fantastic. Night and day compared to being in a damn office all day, dealing with nonsense.

The past couple weeks have been a glimpse of a bright Fastlane future, where I'm free and have control over where I live, what I do, and how I spend my time.

And the biggest mindset shift? I have purpose. Purpose beats passion, any day of the week.

 

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[JustKris]

Had a bit of a scare a few days ago. Our little girl had a 100.6 fever, which is extremely dangerous for a newborn. So we spent the night in the ER, waiting on blood tests and X-Rays and a million other things. Thankfully, everything came up normal and her temperature went down quickly.

The past two days have been getting back into the swing of things. I feel a really good flow to the work now---not the incredible strain at the beginning. Now I'm just in motion and capitalizing on the momentum.

Sales pages are DONE. Automation sequences are set up---got a lot of really cool stuff here.

Now I'm just writing my email drip sequences, then it will be time to start driving traffic.

One thing I never thought would happen is having my real personality in my money-making work. With the exception of some acting/screenwriting gigs, I've always had a huge wall between the "day-job" (what I did to make a living) and my "real work" (what I did to be alive).

But these days, there's no barrier. I'm having fun and creating a system where I can create value without sacrificing my authentic self.

 

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[Joe Cassandra]

Is there a squeeze page asking for an email? People now don't like to give out emails because they know they'll get spammed. Also marketing emails are auto filtered by many email providers. Why would someone use your service if they can get something similar for free elsewhere?

Dude...

You are seriously the most depressing, negative person I've seen on this forum. Literally, every post you write is "blah blah this doesn't work, no one would buy that, snark snark"

You lose ALL credibility in all your answers ever when you say "No one puts their emails in because they are afraid of getting spammed."

Are you $&%&% kiddin'?...

You have obviously never built an email list. Or you tried and really sucked at it.

Carry on @JustKris , don't listen to this garbage. You're doing great.

 

[JustKris]

Got my first sale!!! And I haven't even launched my new (and improved) set of ads---this was from the initial 2 day test.

So even with my horrendous CPL, it's still broke even.

Had some technical mishaps this week---funnel pages breaking, issues with Paypal. But those are all fixed now, as far as I can tell.

Now I'm ready to push some new ad sets with more refined targeting. The real goal is to get the CPL down to $2-3. Then we'll be in business.

 

[JustKris]

Been busy writing down all of my businesses processes, new as they are. So far, I've made good progress on these:

• Prospecting (including sales calls, proposals, and closing)
• Client onboarding

Eventually, every piece of the business will have checklists and a knowledge base for when I hire full-time employees to replace my day-to-day involvement. Project management, client check-ins, deliverable requirements, etc.

Already, I can see some bottlenecks in the process that can be solved with automation. Because I'm a one-man band (outside of some occasional contractors), I can get away with some inefficient activity with regards to client notes and projects. With 3-4 clients at a time, I can keep them all in my head. But scaling to 25-30 clients? No way.

Signed up for Agile CRM, which I really like so far.

I also think this is documentation will help with scope creep on projects. I've been all over the place with a couple of clients and it's definitely not the setup I want to have.

My ultimate goal is to have everyone on steady monthly retainers with clear, defined packages.

 

[JustKris]

Plugging away. Reaching out to some potential clients for one-on-one consulting.

Also working with a coach (I know, I know) on marketing my course. But I was really impressed with his ads, automation, and sales page. And the cost is reasonable enough that I only need a few sales to break even. It's already been really helpful.

Also doing some market research on WHAT roadblocks people are running into when trying to do webinars themselves. If anybody reading this thread wants to do the 1 minute quiz (literally 1 minute), it's here.

Most unusual response I've gotten from the quiz? "I want to fight white supremacy". With a webinar? Um, okay dude.

@Andy Black, I've been thinking a lot about your post in the Death Of Gurus thread. I have the same feeling---I want to serve people without doing all the cheesy internet marketing bullshit. It just feels so condescending. There's got to be a way to be honorable and still be effective.

 

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[JustKris]

Full steam ahead! Almost finished with my sales funnel pages and upsells. Also wrote a 2000 word lead magnet and shot a couple upsell videos.

Working on my email automation sequences and integrations right now. I was skeptical about working with a business consultant (ugh, I hate the word "coach") but it's been awesome. He and his tech team have made this much, much easier.

Should be ready to start driving traffic within another week.

It's amazing how much more efficient things are when you're working for yourself vs working at a company. I get things done 10x faster---no meetings, no back-and-forth, no waiting.

Oh also---I've set up a couple of Fastlaners with free review copies for my course. I'll open it up for 8 more users---if your business does B2B sales and want to explore using webinars, just send me a PM. I'll also give you a free consult to help you set up your campaign, in exchange for an honest testimonial.

 

[JustKris]

Mini-update.

Did a 2 day Facebook ad test at $150/day. Now I'm pausing to recalibrate and optimize things.

The Good

The opt-in rate was pretty crazy, like 90%. Basically, if you clicked on the ad, you are going to sign up.

The engagement with the email drip has been really good so far. People have been clicking on the emails, replying, etc. Gotten opt-ins from all over the world, which is cool.

The Bad

Not nearly enough clicks for the money. Even with the high opt-in rate, the cost-per-lead was WAY too high---over $10 per email. (This ranged from $7 per lead to $43 per lead, depending on the ad/targeting.)

And not all of those people clicked on the confirmation email, so the true cost was even higher than that.

Something also went screwy with my automation. People were confirming their emails as normal, then I get a message from a guy that the confirmation link doesn't work. Not sure if it was his browser or what. Hopefully that was just an anomaly, since other people opted in after that.

(I was tempted to have a "The Ugly" section as well, but that's just so hack.)

What's Next?

I suspect one thing is my targeting. So I'm going to go through that, as well as writing some new Facebook ads.

I had 3 different ads, targeting 3 different customer profiles. It's funny, the ad I liked the most had the WORST engagement out of all of them. And the ad that I liked the least had the best engagement.

Not worried. I figured something like this would happen.

It's very strange, but it feels drastically different doing this all for my own business. I write Facebook ads all the time at work and it feels detached. "Oh, that ad campaign was $40/lead? Oh, well. Let's try something new."

But when it's my own money, my own product---the urgency is significantly higher.

Skin in the game. It's real.

 

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[JustKris]

Hey Fastlaners,

Been a while since I've been on here. Just wanted to check in.

I've been consulting in addition to my Slowlane job. And I'm setting up a consulting arrangement with them. So in 3 weeks, I'll be fully location independent. (Which is great, since we are moving out of state.)

What's especially cool is that the consulting clients have not only paid well, but the work is really interesting and fun. I get to concentrate on my strengths (copywriting/content marketing) while getting rid of tedious corporate busywork.

Very thankful for all of the stories and lessons on this board and out there in the "real world". It's been a very eventful few months.

 

[BigRomeDawg]

I like how you said you want to be the ghost in the machine you built.

Good for you for focusing on processes and documentation. Total game changer when we started focusing on that. I would recommend it even to the solopreneur who doesn't want employees. It saves precious brain power.

 

[JustKris]

Shot my first greenscreen video and edited it. Turned out pretty well, considering I did everything myself. Shooting a how-to video tonight.

I also have a meeting tomorrow with a consultant who works with a lot of course creators. Should be interesting.

Debating moving the main website to Squarespace or using Thrive Architect. I've been wasting so much time on bullshit design stuff---it's time to just move on.

And another "sign from the universe"---a buddy of mine from acting school has a pretty successful SaaS company. He wants to set up a webinar campaign and pay out a percentage of sales.

We're about 3 weeks away from our baby girl arriving, so that campaign might have to wait until late October/early November.

 

[JustKris]

The stupidest things have been tripping me up. Right now? Just getting a workable Wordpress theme for my consulting/course site. At work, we have a designer and a front-end coder, so all I have to do is type what I want in a Google Doc and they'll take care of it.

I don't even want to know how many hours I've spent noodling around on this with absolutely NO progress. Screw it, I'm just going to hire somebody on Upwork to implement a good-looking Wordpress theme and be done with it. I need to leverage my strengths, not get bogged down in unrelated tasks.

And speaking of leverage---I'm blown away at how LITTLE I need to sell to replace my Slowlane income. One sale a day, plus a couple consulting clients, and I'd easily double what I'm making now.

And it's not even about money. I'd gladly work twice the hours for 1/2 the money I make now, if it was all for my own company. Because at least it would all be towards my dream, not just some placeholder job to pay bills.

 

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[MattR82]

Love it!! Rep incoming

I'm doing the exact same thing should have the ebook finished in a week which will be the course outline. Then cut it back so the ebook doesn't give everything away but is a good little lead magnet. I'm still a few weeks away, maybe a month, from my own progress thread.

Man, I feel ya, it's a great feeling. And not a "make money with ... online" course. Something I have helped a bunch of people with that I believe has legs.

I'm just going to start out with hosting it on thinkific though, using their free version to see how it goes.

A weekly webinar is part of what I'm doing, so will be in touch with you if you don't mind. Sounds interesting!

 

[JustKris]

Love it!! Rep incoming

I'm doing the exact same thing should have the ebook finished in a week which will be the course outline. Then cut it back so the ebook doesn't give everything away but is a good little lead magnet. I'm still a few weeks away, maybe a month, from my own progress thread.

Man, I feel ya, it's a great feeling. And not a "make money with ... online" course. Something I have helped a bunch of people with that I believe has legs.

I'm just going to start out with hosting it on thinkific though, using their free version to see how it goes.

A weekly webinar is part of what I'm doing, so will be in touch with you if you don't mind. Sounds interesting!

Awesome, man! Sure, hit me up. Once things settle down with the new baby, I'll be looking for some additional case studies for the course.

 

[rogue synthetic]

The stupidest things have been tripping me up. Right now? Just getting a workable Wordpress theme for my consulting/course site. At work, we have a designer and a front-end coder, so all I have to do is type what I want in a Google Doc and they'll take care of it.

I don't even want to know how many hours I've spent noodling around on this with absolutely NO progress. Screw it, I'm just going to hire somebody on Upwork to implement a good-looking Wordpress theme and be done with it. I need to leverage my strengths, not get bogged down in unrelated tasks.

This is my world right now. Coming from a strong background in front- and back-end web-dev, I've internalized the "Just do it myself" script. Then I look up from the screen and realize I've been tweaking CSS styles for 8 hours to absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

I've had to go cold turkey on the coding and make my priority the actual work that needs doing.

I think this is one of those lessons we're supposed to learn about how to delegate tasks in order to focus on that "thinking" stuff.

Congrats on the little one (save up sleep NOW) and best of luck moving forward!

 

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[JustKris]

Jesus.. didn't mean to hijack your progress thread, I'll be starting my own soon enough, sorry about that. I was just interested in comparing plans.

We need a good course creator thread, I don't think there is one like an AMA yet? Hopefully yours turns into that!

No worries. Check out JoeCassandra's thread, he is making great progress with his lead magnet.

I went with Teachable, honestly it looked pretty similar to Thinkific. Some people build out their own membership sites, but that's something I'd happily pay not to do.

I looked into pre-selling, but I just didn't like the idea of trying to crank out 30,000 words and hours of video in a week. Maybe if you have enough free time to create a course in that amount of time, it's a way to go.

 

[JustKris]

Seeing some of these other threads is really illuminating---I'm still doing a ton of action faking. It's insidious. I've been using the new baby as an excuse not to do more---"What if she arrives tomorrow and I can't respond to customer emails?", etc.

On the upside, I have hired a guy to set up my site. That's something I've been struggling with for weeks. Now it's time to focus on the most important tasks and start making sales.

 

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[JustKris]

Whew. What a whirlwind week. Back from the hospital---everything went smoothly. Mama and baby are doing great.

Website updates are all done. I can't believe how much aggravation I went through trying to do it myself, when all it took was $150 for an Upwork freelancer to handle everything in a few days.

Contacting my consulting leads from a few weeks back and starting to build out my course funnel. I've set up two big paths: 1-on-1 consulting for larger companies and the online course for smaller businesses/solopreneurs.

Still trying to decide on the best fee structure for the consulting. For my Slowlane job, I get a base and a percentage of sales. And for my one-off clients, I've been doing a flat fee. But the more I think about it, the base/commission model makes sense. Less upfront risk for the client, more upside for me when I deliver.

 

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[JustKris]

I can recommend joining the Thinkific studio Facebook group. Seeing regular posts from a bunch of people working on, launching and sharing their course successes (and problems) is a good little motivator.

By the way, where did you come up with the idea that you had to have your video course done a week after pre selling it for validation? I actually haven't seen much info on this, about to start researching it.

I'm thinking of pre-selling it after I have the ebook finished. No idea on what price to put in anything yet, so will use made up numbers for the example below:

Free or <$10 ebook -> pre sell course for $50 down from 300. After the pre sell period is over and I have a bit of data to go off (although I will probably still shoot it no matter what the results are), I would refund the $50 and tell them they will have the course for free when it becomes available. Should help assuage their feelings that the course won't be ready in a week, but in 4-6 weeks or so. Also a great little booster for good reviews and building up an audience from the get go.

Not necessarily a week, but I didn't want to divide my time between creating and marketing. I can definitely see where pre-selling is a good idea, but I just don't have enough free time to run a campaign AND write a book AND record hours of video.

If it works for you, go for it. Plenty of people pre-sell courses with great success.

 

[MattR82]

Not necessarily a week, but I didn't want to divide my time between creating and marketing. I can definitely see where pre-selling is a good idea, but I just don't have enough free time to run a campaign AND write a book AND record hours of video.

If it works for you, go for it. Plenty of people pre-sell courses with great success.

Yeah I feel ya.

Congrats by the way!

 

[JustKris]

Plugging away. Reaching out to some contacts (including an old employer) about doing some consulting on a commission basis. A few are interested, now it's just time to actually pull the trigger.

Also digging into the pain points with that marketing survey. Interesting thing so far---quite a few people have said very similar things. Definitely some patterns forming.

Whew, it is weird working with a newborn at home. Some of my most productive work has been at the most random times. Had a call at 1am with a guy from Spain, did some emailing at 8, and then crashed out until just now, hahaha.

 

[Dunkafelics]

Love the consistent action and congratulations on the new addition to the family.

It seems like you are still going full force which is awesome, you don't seem like the type to make excuses and are making things happen.

Did you take some time off since the baby has arrived? If not, you are one driven SOB lol.

When would you like to make your exit from the work force?

 

[JustKris]

FINALLY done with the market research. (And thank you everyone who filled out the quiz.)

Whew. It was super tedious, but I'm glad I did it. I have a much better understanding of people's pain points when it comes to this type of thing.

Now it's time to start building the sales funnel. Good times.

Also had a fun call with @Andy Black talking about webinars and his Adwords practice. He had a genius idea of offering a discount for forum members for the online course. Once I'm ready to launch, will let anybody who's interested know about that.

 

[MattR82]

By the way, webinars are currently a pretty hot topic in the Facebook groups for kajabi and thinkific course creators. Especially Kajabi, who have just rolled out their own which I think is still a beta test and I think mixed reviews (when live is considered).