From 0 to Freedom in 3 Months

[Chapas]

When creating my introduction thread on this forum, I promised myself that I would start a progress thread within a couple of days. Now I finally got to it. I cannot express enough how much motivation you guys in here give me. Even though I have an accountability partner that pushes me hard, I believe having a progress threads in here with all you bright minds, will make me push even harder to reach my goal.

Short about me for those who did not read my intro thread: 29 years old. Newly married. Born in Russia, raised in Denmark. Masters Degree in International Marketing. Lived in a various of countries due to studies and work. Number of failed businesses due to lack of determination, discipline and action-taking. Dissappointed in myself when thinking about what I could have achieved with my life already if I had not been this lazy.

Fortunately I believe that I have woken up now. I can see my path, and I will pursue it in every way that I can. My wife and I left what could have been a comfortable slowlane life in Denmark - to travel to a little beautiful place called Montenegro, in order for me to launch a business in the following 3 months. Friends think I am crazy. Family thinks I am insane. I do not care. This is my shot at a good future!

From 0 to Freedom in 3 Months. What is freedom though? It is very relative. Freedom is different for everyone. For me freedom is to do something I enjoy, can be proud of and bring something valuable to the people around me and my business. To be able to control my own life, build my future and to live anywhere I want.

If I decided to stay in Denmark and work within my profession I would have a salary of approximately 5.000 dollars a month (3.000 dollars after our crazy taxes). So I decided that the amount to buy me freedom and continue for me to evolve is 5.000 dollars a month. This is the minimum amount I want to earn per month by providing a valueable service to my clients. Easier said than done of course!

Even though my friends would say that we went ALL IN by buying a one-way ticket to Montenegro, I will not totally agree with them. Yes, I am under pressure to perform well, however, the cost of living is cheap, so we have enough covered to live 3 months here, and we will not be homeless in case it does not work out and we need to go back.

Now to the important stuff. THE BUSINESS.

The variety and broad range of my skills have never done any good for me - so this time I have decided to specialize on one skill and try to niche it down as much as possible. I have always had an addiction to keep watching courses and videos, reading to much information and books - and always postponing my actions. This is not the case this time.

I have chosen to offer ONE SERVICE to ONE NICHE on ONE PARTICULAR MARKET.

To break it down, as there is no points of keeping secrets; FB Advertising for the Health/Wellness Industry on the Danish market. (so mainstream, sorry!)

I sincerely apologize to especially @MJ DeMarco as this business does not comply with the CENTS, however, this is something I NEED to create to gain the freedom to create even more valuable and interesting business models in the future.

I am by no means a FB Advertising expert, and I do not plan to learn every information of this field before I jump in to this. I have been studying it closely for the last month, and I believe that I can offer something of value to my future clients. Otherwise I would not do it.

Today I took the first action.

Knowing that I am not in a urgent money need and that I have no portfolio at all - there was only one correct way that popped up in my brain to day to land my first potential client or two. To PROVIDE VALUE and GET RESULTS for the client - and then ask for the sale. My plan was to basically create and run the clients ads for free for a short period of time - while the client would pay for the adspend. Worst case scenario for the client if I do not perform well: he loses 100 dollars (should be affordable for every ambitious business) Worst case scenario for me: I lose the time I have spent on his campaign, HOWEVER, I will LEARN from my mistakes and do better with the same or the next client. I always think in worst case scenarios - maybe I need to focus my thinking more towards best case scenarios.

I decided to create a post on my personal Facebook profile to reach people within my network. Basically I let people know that I have finished my Masters Degree in International Marketing and were now focusing on a more digital approach to this field - especially targetted at Facebook Advertising. And before I could make an earnest living of this I would need to experiment with the things I have learned and master my skills with FB Ads. Therefore, if they knew someone who had a business that needed more and better customers - they should not hesitate to contact me. I also included that my primary focus had been on the health niche, however, if our ideas and vision matched, I would still be interested in a collaboration.

40 MINUTES. 2 LIKES. 1 COMMENT. 0 MESSAGES.

Well I guess I should find another way to reach people I though. And then it kind of blew up all of a sudden. In the next 3 hours I received: 20 LIKES. 4 COMMENTS. 10 MESSAGES.

This is where I instantly knew. This is it. I can provide VALUE here. Market is oversaturated with marketing agencies - but still people NEED help! I will be their SUPERMAN here!

It surprised me though that ALL of them were from total different industries:
- A real estate agent in Spain
- A guy running an Escape Rooms location in the centre of the capital city
- A guy owning 2 sales businesses
- A guy owning 3 SAAS companies
- A guy owning a painting company (not sure if the right word)
- A girl doing NLP coaching
- And last but not least a message from a FB Agency company about a possible job offer

There are some interesting ones around here. I will post the same post on some other channel tomorrow, and get one in my network to post it on her Facebook aswell (more contacts within my niche) and see how it plans out. Even though I am a sucker for SAAS (my heart says DO IT, but my brain says YOU ARE NOT READY YET) - I think I will focus on the businesses I can help quicker and easier and where I can provide the most value.

Sooooorry, for the long post. Got carried away again! Tomorrow I will of course TAKE ACTION again and create a much more detailed plan for the next week. Today I am just proud of myself that I took action. Even though it was not a big step - it was still a step in the right direction.

Thank you again for this amazing forum, the advice and the motivation you create for guys like me. Cheers friends!

 

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[Chapas]

Took a day off to clear my mind today. Went to the beach to relax. 10 degrees Celsius however it felt warmer. Now back to hustling all evening.

I have decided to create a small 10 pages PDF document that I will send out to the interested prospects. I will change the frontpage so it is targeted at each specific client. The purpose of this document is to educate them a little about FB ads, about who I am, what the process will be, what we hope to achieve and which steps they need to take if they take my offer. I believe it will save me a lot of time of explaining all of these things individually to every single prospect and give them a better overview of what I can do for their business.

First though, some pictures of this magnificent country!

 

[Chapas]

The bad thing about Montenegro is, when it rains, it really rains. The good thing is, when it rains, it really rains! This means I can just sit at home and focus on taking action. The perfect weather to hustle!

So I finished my 10-paged PDF document. The purpose of it is to educate the potential prospects a little better. It consists of the following:

1. Frontpage (customized for every single prospect)
2. Who am I? (Short about me so they can see the person behind the whole thing. Creates trust. Also have my picture there aswell. It is very informal, due to the Danish culture).
3. Why Facebook Ads? (About the benefits of chosing Facebook Ads)
4. How Facebook Ads can benefit your results (kind of a continuation from part 3)
5. Why you need me (short about why they need me in their lives)
6. How does the process look like (here I explain my ideas and how our process will look like)
7. Continuation from part 6.
8. Why I do this (explain why I chose to do this for free and what the future holds)
9. Whats the next step (Describe the next step ASSUMING they are already on board. Just so they will know what I will need for them and so on. To get an easy start)
10. Thank you for your attention. Should we get started? (And basically just my contact info etc)

I really think that this guide will save me a lot of time. I created it in Google Slides and it doesnt look quite that bad actually! However, I just realized that I can make it even cooler in Canva, so I might do that one of the days. Also this guide is targetted for my Dentists clients, so I need to edit some small things and create the guide for my Chiro and Personal Trainer clients aswell.

UPDATE on the 30 Cold Emails I sent out Saturday:

So basically after I sent out my 30 emails, I read an interesting article from a Fastlaner from this forum, who believes that Tuesday or Wednesday is the best day to send out these emails. So next time I will stick to this advice, and not send out during the weekend. I was just to eager to get started haha.

Got my first reply Sunday from a dentist. It just said "Dont you have your own Facebook profile?". Really weird answer, but SO happy that she wrote that. My name can be spelled in 2 different ways, so my Facebook had one variation of the spelling and the name I normally use has a different. I quickly went in and changed my name and optimized my whole Facebook profile. Because of course! Prospects will look me up on Facebook and LinkedIn when they get my Cold Email. Cannot believe I have not thought about that! So a huge applause to my dentist prospect for spotting the problem.

Anyways, I woke up today like it was Christmas morning. My dentist prospects would all come in to work today, and see the email I have sent to them. Nothing happened most of the day. And then all of a sudden. A phone call from an unknown number! Quickly tried to match the number with the prospects on my leads-document, but did not pick it up in time. Checked my list and IT WAS A DENTIST calling me!

Quickly opened up their website, and called back. WE SPOKE FOR 24 MINUTES! This might not seem like a big deal for you guys, but it was amazing to get that first call. I was surprised about how professional I was, and how confident I was in speaking with the dentist. She told me that she had tried her luck with Facebook Ads herself 3-4 times - without great success. In the end she asked me to please send her some more information and documents of my ideas. SHE ASKED ME! Exciting stuff!

Another thing that I liked, was that I created some scarcity for her. She said that if they needed help, it would probably be after NYE - as their dental-practice will be closed between Christmas and NYE. I told her that I will send her more details today and that I wanted to work with her, however, I already had 2 dentists signed up and were only looking for a couple of more, so I would be able to focus entirerely on each single client.

Maybe it is only a trial client. And maybe she will not believe in my ideas. But I am pumped! It feels like a sale for me. It feels like a validation that people take me seriously and actually believe that I can create value for them! Great day, and extra motivation to keep going.

Oh yes, almost forgot. Wrote to my other dentist lead. She said it sounded interesting and asked for more information aswell. So I have sent her the PDF-document aswell.

2 good leads in 4 days. And hopefully many more to come!

 

[Chapas]

Super Impressed with the cold email results. Any chance you'd be willing to share what your copy looked like?

I have cold emailed quite a bit without getting any replies, so I have taken some time to study up on the different strategies.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks mate! Hopefully I will be able to replicate your results soon!

I will try to break it down a little. However, I am probably using a different approach than you will be using. Since it is against the law to send cold emails in Denmark, I am sending emails to gather free clients at this moment before i form my company. When I have enough succesful trial clients I intend to form a company and convert them to paying customers. When I create a company I cannot longer send cold emails, as I can risk a heavy fine if someone reports me.

Subject: Hi (name)!

I thought a lot about what to write in the subject, and in the end I just stopped overthinking and wrote this short and personal subject line. It is very easy to find the decision makers in my niche, so just a simple personal subject line will work I guess.

Body:

I start out with: As a clinic owner I assume that you are getting bombed with emails. I will try to make this short.
(Not exactly sure why I write this paragraph, but I believe when they read that I will try to make this short, that they are more likely to read my email. Also because the email is not that short actually haha)

Then I create a little intro: My name is (name) and I have just finished a (relevant degree). I have lately focused on specializing myself in the more digital aspect of marketing - specifically (whatever product/service you want to offer them).

Make them feel proud of what they do: I choose to focus on companies in (whatever niche you have chosen), because I feel that your services provides a lot of value for your clients and it is important for me to create results for companies that I can vouch for and that want to do good for people. This is why I feel that (name of their company) and I would be a great match.
(So here I am complimenting them on the ethics and values of their business, and indirect explain them that I do not work with ANY business. Only those who creates value).

Explain what and why I am offering them help: Before I one day can make a career out of (whatever product/service you are offering), I need to master my skills and experiment with what I have learned. This is where your clinic comes into the picture. I want to offer you (whatever you want to offer) for free for a certain period of time in exchange for being able to use the achieved results as case studies in my portfolio. The target of the campaign is to (whatever target and goal you might have with the campaign). The only thing you have to provide yourself is a smaller budget for the advertising itself (for SEO, Social Media etc this could be left out).
(Pretty straight forward I think. Goal is of course not only to use them as case studies, but to close them if I manage to get them great results)

Scarcity: I have set a limit on 3 companies that I want to help - due to the fact that I do not want to take on to many clients and want to have full focus on create the best results for each company. I have already one spot filled out, so I am basically only looking for 2 more companies to help with (whatever you want to help them with).
(My limit was actually 3 companies when I started out, so this was real scarcity. Scarcity is very overused in marketing, so it has to seem legit - and I think this does. Also by writing that I have already one spot filled out, it gives some social proof that people want to work with me).

The personal section: The reason I believe that (name of the company) is a great match, is that I can already see that you compared to many other companies are doing something about your online presence, and that you are not afraid to experiment with the digital world.
(This is the one I have used the most. I also add maybe 1 or two other things that I know about the client, so he can relate to it. Obviously the first couple of lines doesnt work if your prospect has a website that looks like it was made by Dinosaurs haha.)

Call to action: If your clinic already has an overcapacity of happy and satisfied clients, please ignore this email. However, if you believe that your clinic could benefit from getting more clients through the door, then do not hesitate to contact me, and then we can see if our ideas and visions match.
(Basically almost all businesses could use more clients, so maybe I should somehow remove the first line? Also the last like about if our ideas and visions match again makes me look like I am not desperate and that I only want to work with the right clients.)

Friendly goodbye: Regardless, I want to wish you a merry christmas, happy new year and a lot of happy customers in the new year. (followed by my contact details and stuff)
(Always try to be nice to prospects, as even you might not land them as clients this time, your path can cross again in a year or two)

Hope that you can use some of it for inspiration. I actually did not use any specific ideas when I wrote this email, so it was kind of interesting for me to break it down aswell. If someone has any suggestions, feedback or critique - I will be more than happy to listen to it.

 

[Chapas]

Day 22 - Denmark Loves Facebook Ads

I feel like I am spamming to much with my constant updates. But I feel like it motivates me and keeps me structured to update this progress thread. Also I cannot wait to open up a great bottle of red wine one year from now and just spend 5-6 hours reading through my thread and progress!

Updates:

- So today before going out for lunch I decided to send a cold email to 8 different Personal Trainers. In a couple of hours I got 3(!) replies. All of them very interested. One of them already accepting the offer to be my trial client. One of the other two has her own wellness-spa and has 7 or 8 different personal trainers working for her. She basically told me that she gets a ton of this kind of emails, but mine was the most well-written and most personal she has read for a long time, so she was very interested in my project. Guess this tactic works great. So far my Danish cold email statistics are:

20 emails sent
- 2 trial clients landed
- 1 very interested but did not have time for more clients
- 4 very interested that I need to close very soon
- 1 that is ready to work with me from February
- 1 partialy interested

Basically almost a 50 % reply rate. INSANE!

- I agreed terms with my Fiverr lead generation guy, and by Tuesday he should deliver me 125 US leads. I do not think that this strategy will work as great on the US market. Maybe that would be for the better as I would not know what to do with 60 leads haha. I will go for a little more pushy strategy and try to focus more on getting them as PAID clients within 1 week. If I get 5 warm leads from this US strategy, I will be delighter.

- I have a 4 hour bus-ride tomorrow, so I will spend that creating funnels and text for my trial clients, and pitch ideas for my potential new clients.

I think from next week it will start to get real hectic. Especially with all these campaigns I have to run! I am ready though. The next 2 months I will work at least 12-14 hours a day to make my dream happen. Leeeeets do this!

 

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[Chapas]

Day 68 - Now With My First Paid Client

Goooooodmorning America. While you guys are just starting your day, it is already afternoon here in Europe. And looks like I just did my first sale!

I might have undersold myself and I haven't received the money on my account yet, but I consider it a sale.

It is my first ever trial client for whom I got great results for. She accepted my proposal and really praised my attitude and said how much she loved to work with me. Also gave her incentives for referrals and she said that she might already have one customer for me.

She is basically the foundation of my business. The case study I made on her is one of the main reasons I keep getting leads from my cold emails. So that is one of the reasons I gave her a really favorable deal. One of the other reasons is that I just needed that first F*cking sale haha!

I offered her to pay from the 1st of March, due to legal reasons. I have to go back home and start up my company now.

This might not be a lot of money, but honestly this small sale feels much better than the day I won 3000 in online poker online. There is just something about when people recognize your work and the feeling that you bring value to the table.

Once again thanks to this amazing forum. Without you it would not have been possible. Now on to cold emailing you lovely Americans!

 

[Chapas]

Day 31 - Almost One Month In This Game

Cannot believe it has been 1 month since I started this progress threads. I have learned SOOOO much in a month. Even though I have not made a single penny yet, I could not have imagined such a progress to be honest. This is the most consistent and hard-working I have ever been. It is like an addiction now, and I am so much in this game that there is no way back for me. Will write a more detailed post about the first month tomorrow, and what I expect from the second month.

Updates:

• So things are looking really good for my first ever Facebook Ads campaign for my fitness client. So far our numbers are:
  
  Campaign running: Approx 72 hours
  Budget spent: Approx 24 USD
  Reach: 1725 people
  Landing Page Views: 120
  Sign Ups: 14
  
  I have split-tested for 3 days now. Tomorrow I will analyze the data, and try to make the campaign even more effective! I am still making some mistakes as this is my first campaign, but I am really proud of the results so far.
  
  
• Launched my second campaign for another fitness client to gather 6 people for her 10-weeks bootcamp. This one is a more difficult one, as I offered her to do a lead magnet in form of a free session, but due to the fact that she needs to travel she could not do that. So we decided to go for a 10 % discount instead. Issue is that the offer is simply not good enough, and the budget is too low to see results this quickly. I am trying to convince her to use that lead magnet, however, she has not replied me since yesterday. Really not my fault if this campaign will not succed.
  
  
• Launched a third campaign for a Coach client today. She has been really slow because she has been busy, and I had to help her with so many technicalities. Issue is that her Workshop event is on Thursday already, and there is little to no time for us to promote it. Again, if this campaign do not work out, then it has been out of my hands.
  
  
• Working out a campaign for a Personal Trainer. Will launch within the next couple of days. This lady is the sweetest ever and very collaborative. Seems like the perfect client! I believe that this is one I can have succes with.
  
  
• Landed a 5th trial client today. She has a lot of experience being a Personal Trainer for 10 years with more than 5000 clients. Now she is creating her online products as she is moving to another country. When she has her online products ready in 3-4 weeks hopefully, I will give it a go!
  
  
• Chiro client is still interested, and I sent him another email explaining some of my ideas. Think I will get him on board later this week as a trial client. Will be good to have a Chiro in my portfolio!

I am starting to value myself more and more. Now I can see that I actually am capable of delivering some results for my clients. I will learn to be more confident and convince them to take action and listen to my ideas. I will also be more picky in the future. Like the coach client. She is the least important in my portfolio, but she has taken up so much of my time. And now we barely have time to create some results for her.

I am also learning more and more about Facebook Ads everyday. You can read and watch so many videos, but it first when you actually start to work with it you really learn. And big thanks to @Lucas Lee-Tyson ! Your advice has been golden, and will help me avoid many mistakes in my future campaigns :-D

I am also starting to systemize things. It takes much less time for me to create a campaign now. I duplicate a lot of what I have had success with. I will try to systemize things more and more.

What Are The Plans For Tomorrow?

- While I am writing this my fitness bootcamp client actually replied me, and I will somehow change her campaign to include the lead magnet aswell. This will give us a much greater chance of succeeding. That I will do tomorrow!

- Will finish up the campaign for my new PT trial client and hopefully launch tomorrow or Wednesday.

- Tomorrow I will FINALLY start my US Cold Email campaign. No excuses! Will send 20 emails out tomorrow. This time not looking for trial clients, but for PAID ones.

- Tomorrow I will follow-up on all of my interested potential prospects, that somehow have been to busy to reply me. Hopefully I can get a couple of them on board.

Thank you guys for tuning in. Lets continue our hustle!

 

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[Chapas]

Day 60 - I Am Back

Lack of motivation, procrastination, action-faking, bad luck, sickness, personal issues etc etc etc. There are so many excuses I can use for the lack of progress. To hell with them. I am back more motivated than ever!

2 months have passed now, and time is running! I think one of the issues with motivation is that I did not update this progress thread regularly. I will start doing it now again. Hope you missed me haha!

Updates:

- I will have a talk with my first trial client this week. It is time for me to convert her into a paying client. Her campaign has been running for a month now and I basically havent touched it for the last 2-3 weeks. We have had more than 60 sign ups for an ad spend of 230 USD. Really great results!

- I lost my American client. She thought that my price was to high based on my experience. What has this taught me? Seem more professional and keep out details that will make you seem unexperienced. Less chit-chat and more professionalism.

Plans:

- Unfortunately, I will be leaving Montenegro in 2 weeks. Need to go back home to Denmark and start my company there. Will spend the whole of March in Denmark, which is good as it gives me the opportunity of closing some clients face-to-face. If all goes well we will head to somewhere cheap and warm in April (maybe Thailand). If all goes to shit I might be looking at getting a job for a short period of time in Denmark. I will do anything not to go back to the slowlane though, so the only option is to hustle the hardest now!

- I have totally revamped my business model and pricing. I have created a website so everything seems much more professional and created an amazing Case Study that I show to my prospects.

- I will really go all in on Cold Emails and LinkedIn now. Will send 50 personalized Cold Emails to US clients, 10 to Danish clients and connect with 50 people from the US fitness industry on LinkedIn every day!

What do I need to succeed?

I need somewhere between 4 or 6 recurring clients before 1st of April. This is the bare minimum for what I need in order to not go back to a job.

I plan to send 2000 US Cold Emails, 400 DK Cold Emails and send connections to 2000 people on LinkedIn. I strongly believe that somewhere in there I have at least 5 potential clients.

I understand now that it is all a numbers game. I know that I can create results and I know that I am actually good at what I do. So there is nothing else to it but hustle! Just need to keep sending emails and keep connecting with people and I know that I will succeed.

I promise to update almost every single day in the next one and a half month. Thank you guys for all of your support through the last 2 months. It really meant the world to me.

LEEEEETS DO THIS!

 

[RazorCut]

Congratulations on taking action. Moving out of your comfort zone and betting everything on a 3 month window is a great way to gain focus when that has been your downfall in the past.

There are lots of opportunities in the FB marketing niche. You can build a nice profitable business while learning the ropes then apply what you have learnt to your own product in the future. Or of course you might get bit by the bug and end up building and running a large FB agency. There is plenty of scope. I see a lot of successful FB marketeers switch to their own products eventually as they see all the money they are making for others for relatively little reward so get disillusioned and want in on the action.

Obviously you need to learn quickly as you have to provide value to any new clients (you obviously can't just continue to burn their money seeing what works).

I'm kind of in the same boat as you getting back into FB marketing (had a spell doing it years ago but a lot has changed since) but I have a product to launch in Janauary.

Looking forward to your progress reports.

-

 

[Chapas]

First progress thread for my little FB agency.

I got overwhelmed by the replies I received from my FB status update. And it got mere even more confused - as most of the companies are not within my niche. I have replied everyone and had a small conversation with each and everyone, however, due to the weekend - people are slow to reply.

Currently, I believe that the most value I can provide is to the guy running the Escape Rooms and to the guy owning a painting company. The other projects are either to complex or uncertain for me to take on. I will keep them open though, in case I do not find some more interesting projects within my niche in the following week.

Progress Since Last Update:

Networking:

- I contacted an old friend of mine who has his own company within the fitness industry. Apart from being a personal trainer, he has his own physical bootcamp. His concept is very strong and interesting, and he has already gained a lot of customers by word-of-mouth. This is a guy who is really good at what he is doing and is very passionate about it. So I really wanted to work with him.

He replied me that he has read my post with great interest, and is ready to try it out. That he in the last years have developed a huge network amongst self-employed business owners in the health industry and that he is confident of that there is a huge potential for me in this industry if I can create some results. That his concept has had really good results from word-of-mouth and it would be exciting to see if we could take it to the next level through FB advertising, and that he hopes that his success would help kickstart the success for my agency in the new year.

The only issue is that he will be travelling untill February - however, this might actually be a good thing. Imagine if I could have a team or two full of clients ready for him when he gets back, so he could get to work immediately! Cannot wait to work with this guy, and will strive my best to deliver the best results for him. Then I am sure that he will do whatever he can to refer me to his huge network.

- I contacted an old friend who I knew had a dentist in their network. My old friend contacted the dentist on my behalf and sent them my Facebook update. The dentist returned by saying that at this moment she already had enough clients, however, her assistants could always use more - so if I could get in touch with her tomorrow. So tomorrow I will get in touch with this dentist, and will try to close her as a "trial-client".

Cold Emailing:

In Denmark it is against the law to send cold emails. The fine can actually be pretty big! However, since I am NOT a company (yet) and contact people in order to get them on as trial clients in exchange for using the results as a Case Study - I will probably not face any problems with this (i hope not lol).

I compiled a list of 30 dentists. 10 in the capital city. 10 in the outskirts of the capital city. And 10 in a whole different part of the country. Now I will split test which part of the country works best!

I created a template - however, I semi-personalized each email, where I make sure to mention their first names 2-3 times within the email, aswell as their business and location. Aswell as I personalized the section of why I chose THEM.

I could have sent more than 30 emails, however, I will wait to see what the response will be from these first 30. I believe that I would get at least 1 positive answer. If not, I will analyze and change my message - and send out to 30 other prospects on Wednesday. On Thursday I will write a follow-up email to the ones of the initial 30 prospects that did not reply.

Tasks For The Following Days:

- Keep learning. Keep learning. Keep learning. Trying to watch as much on FB ads as possible.
- Gather a list of 20 chiropractor prospects.
- Write the dentist lead and close her as a "trial-client".
- Re-evaluate the initial leads I gathered through my original Facebook post.
- Contact two other people in my network who I know have a dentist in their network.

It is really exciting for me. I have taken so much more action than I am used to. Tomorrow I will head down to the beach with my wife and take a little break from the screen. I feel my eyes will love me giving them a little break from the computer screen!

 

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[Chapas]

A little update from day 6 of my journey.

Cold Emails Results:

- Saturday I sent a cold email to 30 dentist prospects. Sunday and Monday I got 2 leads from that to whome I sent some more information. Yesterday evening I received a new lead. A dentist wrote me that my project sounded really interesting, and that she was really interested in hearing about my ideas in general and about digital marketing. This lady sounded genuily interested! She is the owner of a dental practice on the mainstreet in one of the largest cities in Denmark. They have 9 dentists! Furthermore, they have a really good looking website that is build to convert. So I already wrote a note about her on my prospect list, that these guys do look like someone who are not afraid of trying out digital marketing and invest money in it. I wrote her a long email today about my ideas and thoughts, and also attached my PDF-document. Still waiting for a reply - but I am very optimistic about this one.

- Today I got a phone call from what I thought was a dentist. He introduced himself, but I could not really figure out who it was. While I was speaking to him I looked his number up online, and it was registered to a consulting company. We talked for like 10 minutes, and then I could hear someone walked through the door at his office, and he said he would call me back. He still havent called back. Which is probably good. In the meantime I used my crazy google stalking skills, and found out that this guy indeed is an owner of a dentil practice that I have contacted, but he is also owner of a couple of other consulting and marketing companies who are targetting dentists. So basically I am assuming he just called me to get free information and free ideas. Lesson learn - competitors are around!

- My two first leads have not gotten back to me yet. However, I only sent them more information yesterday, and usually everyone in Denmark is busy uptill Christmas, so I do not expect them to follow up before Thursday or Friday.

Other possible clients for the future:

- An old friend of mine called me today. He has created an equivalent of Airbnb for a totally different industry. They have been online in 2 years and are seeing some great results and press coverage already. He read my post about FB Ads and wanted me to play around with their campaigns. Initially he thought I was in Denmark and we could meet, but since I am in Montenegro he first need to talk with his partners about the idea of me working with their campaigns remotely. This is so much NOT my niche, but this project is so interesting, that I honestly would be glad to do it for free for a month or two, as I know I would learn a lot from it. Also my friend basically knows almost everyone that you need to know in our small country, so the amount of referrals I could get from him is insane.

- Contacted another old friend of mine who are doing great in the fitness niche on Instagram. He does not need marketing himself as he is a semi-pro athlete that does not really have any product or service to offer. However, he told me that he has a very huge network, so now it is my plan to persuade him to get me a couple of trial clients within the fitness niche.

Further steps:

- Today I researched and found 20 interesting chiropractor leads and 20 interesting leads on personal trainers. I have written the email, and will send it out to them tomorrow. Thank you to @KimLangholz for the advice about the best time to send out cold emails.

- Still need to learn more and take more notes on FB Ads. If you guys have any resources that I might not know of - please let me know. Cannot wait to get started with the campaigns though. You can learn that much by reading and watching videos, but once you start implementing it - thats where the real learning begins.

The Short Term Goals:

It is very difficult right before Christmas, because I know that almost all of my prospects will close their business between Christmas and NYE. However, I am still sure that they will be checking their emails. Thank god for Danish people not being lazy!

- I want at least 3 trial clients who I can start with either next week or in the beginning of January.
- I want to find at least 7 more trial clients by the end of January.

If I run succesful campaigns for these 10 clients, I am most certain that I can AT LEAST close 50 % of them. I have only been going for 6 days, and I am totally new to this. But I truly believe that by the beginning of February - I can have at least 5 PAYING clients. Seems very optimistc by the fact that I have not even landed a single trial client yet haha. But I can feel that the action taking is giving me so much confidence, and strongly believe that I will succeed!

Thank you for following this thread guys. It really motivates me a lot to write in here. If anyone has any feedback, advice or critique - please feel free to speak up!

 

[Chapas]

Day 29 - Finally Online Again

So I am finally online again. More than 24 hours without power ended last night. I will never underestimate the privilige of a hot meal and a hot shower again.

Most important, we are finally online with my first trial clients Facebook campaign!

Her company runs outdoor fitness bootcamps. Our offer is 2 weeks of free training. So far our numbers look like this:

Campaign running: 20 hours
Budget spent: Approx 5 USD
Reach: Approx 400 people
Landing Page Views: 35
Sign Ups: 5

So far i am pretty satisfied as it is the first campaign I have ever ran. Like FIRST EVER.

The sample is still small and I am still split testing two variations of the ad.

Today I am launching campaigns for two other trial clients as well. One NLP Coach who has a workshop on Thursday (very little time) and one Personal Trainer who needs clients for a 10 week Bootcamp.

Exciting times. Think I am getting addicted to this entrepreneurship thing!

 

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[Chapas]

Day 33 - How To Make It In America

Anybody ever seen this show? About two young designers/entrepreneurs hustling their way through the fashion scene of New York City. Cannot believe they shut down that show after just 2 seasons! Gutted!

Got carried away. This thread is not supposed to be about tv-shows. Just got a little nostalgic when I thought of the headline. This thread is about some updates on some exciting US news I have to share. First some small updates:

- My first campaign has slowed down a little, but it is still getting sign ups. I have analyzed the data and plan to change the ad sets tomorrow, so we can get even more effective with it.

- My campaign for my Coach client is ending tomorrow. Not one single ticket sale for her event. But what to expect when we launch the campaign 2,5 days before the event and so far only spent around 13 dollars (when a ticket for the event cost 38). This campaigned was doomed to fail from the beginning due to the slow response from the trial client. I was ready to launch it in the beginning of January, and then I believe we could actually have seen some results. Well, it happens!

- I have changed around the campaign for my 3rd trial client. Again we have a time limit here, as we are offering a free training session for Wednesday the 23th of January. Our goal is to get 6 signups. Not easy, but not impossible. Will keep you updated about this one!

- Was supposed to have a call today with a prospect. We called each other twice without getting hold of each other, so we agreed a time for tomorrow and will have the meeting then.

- Another potential lead wrote me if I could get on a call with her this week. Also a PT. Hopefully I can get her on a call tomorrow or Friday.

- 75 % finished with my campaign for my 4th trial client. Pretty positive that we will launch in the upcoming days as well.

- Aaaaaand now for the MOST IMPORTANT NEWS OF THE DAY! I started my US Cold Email campaign yesterday. Sent out 10 emails yesterday and 10 today. Tonight I got an email from an owner of a Fitness Studio in New Jersey: "When can we have a meeting?". SO excited that my cold email campaign is also working in the US. We have set up a meeting for Friday. So excited and also a bit nervous. English is not my main language and havent spoken it for a while. But who needs the comfort zone anyways!

I will soon need to read up and watch some videos about sales and closing clients. I feel that the time is coming soon where I will have to start closing. Very exciting times ahead. Will keep you guys updated!

 

[Chapas]

Day 35 - God Bless America

It seems like every day keeps getting more and more exciting. Completely have forgotten how amazing you Americans actually are. Spent my sophomore year in High School in Michigan, and havent been back since. Think I need to start making plans to make a little trip over the Atlantic! Some small interesting updates:

- My first trial clients campaign is still going well. We had 20 sign-ups for 50 dollars ad spend. Which is really great! However, 19 of these were women, so I have changed up the ad set to focus solely on women. Looking forward to finding out how it will perform in the next 3-4 days.

- Closed down the campaign for my coach client. 0 signups. That campained were doomed to fail from the beginning. So actually happy it is over.

- Still trying to work magic with the campaign of my 3rd trial client - for her 6 person bootcamp. Still no signups, but I can see the campaign is performing better now than with the initial 5 % discount offer (what a horrible offer btw).

- Finished up the campaign for my 4th trial client. Launching it tomorrow!

- Was supposed to have a call with another PT prospect today. We had to re-schedule for Sunday though. Will 100 % close her there.

And now for the more interesting news:

- Had a talk with a potential PT client yesterday. She was interested, and actually ALREADY wanted to refer me to someone after just a 15 minutes talk. Apparently her best friend owns a big gym, and needs help with Facebook Ads. She gave him my number and he should could me next week. Tomorrow I will create some small ideas for his campaign though, so he already gets a feeling of what I can bring to the table even before we talk on the phone. This could be a HUGE client for me!

- Had my first US call today! It was soooo great to hear the American accent again! Sincerely missed it. This lady has her own gym in New Jersey. I loved her! She is the type that says things straight from her heart and is transparent as water. We spoke for 55 minutes. We even spoke about marijuana, alcohol and animal rescue. Did not even feel like a client, but like a friend I havent spoken to for a long long time haha. Basically she loved my personality and the approach I had towards her business, and even said "she would love to work with me". We agreed to do a screenshare on Tuesday where she will show me how she runs her campaigns now, and then I will get the chance of running her campaigns for 2-3 days - if successful, she will hire me.

GOD BLESS AMERICA! You guys are amazing!

 

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[Chapas]

Day 94 - Witnessing Slowlane at its Worst

The last 10 days I have had a first row ticket to watch how the slowlane and lack of ambitions are degenerating people. It has really been sad to witness, and unfortunately I will still have to witness it for the next week.

Long story short is that our apartment is undergoing some maintanence at this moment, so I had to move in with a childhood friend for 2 weeks with our cats. He really saved our asses, but it has been so tough to live here and witness how he and the rest of our friends live.

Slowlane can be good for some people, but for some it is slowly degenerating them. For 10 days in a row I have been surrounded by people who finishes work and then just sits around on the couch, watching stupid tv-shows and smoking weed (a lot of successful people smoke weed as well, so no hate on that in general, just in this situation) every evening because they do not know what else to do. It has been so demotivating to be in this environment. I love my friend, but it is impossible for me to change him unfortunately. With that in mind it has been impossible to get anything done in the evenings under these circumstances.

Maybe it is just excuses from my side, but it is really hard to get anything done in such an environment. Just need to hustle harder when I am alone in the house.

Some small updates:

• I have 2 paid clients. They live in a totally different part of the country, and randomly they both were in my city last week. So I finally got to meet them both over a coffee and the meetings went really great. Really awesome people. It was especially interesting to meet my second client as he used to ride Tour de France with some of my big childhood heroes. Hope that I will keep them on as clients for a long time.
  
  
• I launched a campaign for a trial client I have been talking with since January. She is most probably going to participate in the Olympics as a weigh-lifter. She is starting to transition her services from Personal Training to Remote Personal Training. So we made a 2 week free training program that people could sign up to in order for her to convert them to montly members afterwards. So far the results have been absolutely brilliant:
  
  - Campaign run: 5 days
  - Ad spend: 30 USD
  - Sign Ups: 76
  - Ad spend per sign up: 0,39 USD
  
  With her pricepoints she basically just need to convert 1 out of the 76 people in order to be profitable. I promised to run her campaigns for 2 weeks, and after that I am very optimistic that I will land her as my 3rd paid client.
  
  
• My friend has an outdoor fitness concept as well (like my first client) and I promised him some time ago to run a campaign for him. He has a huge network in the industry and will talk with him on Thursday and probably launch his campaign this week. Plan is to get him on as my 4th paid client and get him to refer as many people as possible.
  
  
• The slowlane job hunting is also going on. I have a job interview today and on Monday. The job I am interviewing for today is much more interesting, however, I have a feeling that it will take up more of my time than the one on Monday. I do not have the option to be picky though as I need to find a good paying job ASAP while I keep working on gaining my freedom.
  

I really want to post more often, however, the last 10 days were so demotivating that I did not even know what to post. I will try to stay focused on my goal and post when I have something interesting. Thank you for tuning in guys!

 

[Chapas]

Day 17 - Sometimes You Need Peace of Mind

Sometimes you need to get away from the screen and find some peace of mind. Did not get much done the last days, due to we travelled to another city to see what else Montenegro has to offer. Was a very nice little trip and now I am back even more motivated than before!

Some updates:

- We are basically good to go with my first trial client. Just need to correct some text for her FB Ad and figure out the retargeting. The funnel is ready, and tomorrow we will discuss the targetting, even though I already have an idea about it. Oh yes, she mentioned some very interesting plans regarding franchising and other locations that she is looking into, so this client could potentially be worth a lot for if I do a great job for her.

- Have a call tomorrow with another PT who is interested. Created an example campaign for her, so will be interesting to hear her feedback. She was the one who has been in magazines and TV, so think she has a great network and can refer some new clients to me aswell if all goes well.

- While the time between Christmas and NYE is quiet, I got a reply from one of my other PT leads. She is very interested, and I promised to send her some more stuff during this weekend, and then we will talk the 2nd of January.

- My other trial client who is an old friend of mine (coach/psychotherapist) is pretty quiet during these days, however, I believe we will get started on her campaigns in the beginning of January aswell. She has an event coming up the 17th of January though, so we are in a kind of a rush. However, I do not really feel confident about this event - but we will try it out!

- My dentist lead actually replied me and gave me a lot of insight into the Danish dentist industry. Apparently it is regulated, so you cannot just offer something of very cheap value. There is regulated prices for what their services should cost. I was quite surprised about that. I need to revise my tactics and figure out how we can get her new clients without "breaking" the law.

So so far after 17 days:
- 2 trial clients (PT and Coach)
- 2 very warm leads (PT and PT)
- 2 semi warm lead (Dentist and PT)
- 3 quiet leads that needs to be warmed up again (2 x Dentist and 1 x Chiro)
- 1 more trial client from the beginning of February (PT)
- 1 very warm lead from the beginning of February (PT)
- 1 possible "partner" (company that creates websites and strategy for PTs)

That is actually WAY WAY better than I expected. Especially given the time of the year I started my progress with people always being busy with Christmas and NYE. I will follow up on my other cold email prospects right after NYE and see what happens. I think the respons will be much better.

Plans for the rest of 2018 (sounds cheesy with only 2 days left lol)

- Completely finish campaign/ad/targetting for 1st trial client so we are ready to launch around 3/4 of January.
- Nail it on the phone with my warm lead tomorrow and get her on board as my 3rd trial client
- Figure out a strategy and reply to my dentist lead.
- Make some campaign examples for my other warm lead so I can close her the 2nd of January
- Create a detailed plan and structure for the first months of 2019. Those 2 months are going to be hectic. I will take so much action as never before and cannot wait to see where I am the 1st of March.

Happy New Year guys! May we all crush our goals in 2019!

Oh, and btw. Budva was awesome. If you ever come by Montenegro I would recommend a visit there. Here is a couple of pictures from our little 3 day trip.

 

[Chapas]

Day 25 - Game of Thrones Getaway

Didn't get much done these days. Had to make a 3 night trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia. For those who are watching Game of Thrones, this is the place some of the main scenes are filmed. At least that is what people say, as I have never watched it myself. The scenery is amazing, although the city is pretty quiet in winter. Compared to Montenegro it is pretty expensive. So kind of miss my temporary home country haha.

I have a reeeeaaaally busy time coming up. Tomorrow I need to spend 4 hours in the bus prepping all the upcoming campaigns. I have 3 campaigns to be launched before Friday.

Tuesday: Launching a campaign for my coach client
Wednesday: Launching a campaign for a Fitness Concept
Thursday: Launching a campaign for my Personal Trainer client

Furthermore I have:
- Scheduled call with a potential PT client Wednesday
- Scheduled call with a potential Chiro client Thursday
- Send my ideas to two other potential PT clients
- Send new ideas to 2 potential dentist leads

Oh yes, and I just received 125 US leads from my Fiverr guy. Starting to run my US cold email campaign from Wednesday.

Who needs sleep anyways. I will sleep in 2019 I guess

A little postcard from Dubrovnik to all of you hardworking fastlaners out there!

 

[Chapas]

Day 139 - What A Hectic Month

Current Revenue Per Month: 800 USD

Yesterday I bought a bottle of redwine, and sat on the balcony reading through this whole thread. I was proud and dissappointed in the same way. Proud that I actually started something and made progress, and dissappointed that I have not reached my goals so far.

The last month have been really hectic with current client work, legalizing my business and getting a business-bank account (what a tough process!!), job-searching, apartment-hunting, spending time with friends and family I havent seen for a long time and a lot of other various things.

So this Monday I was finally offered a slowlane job and actually already started working there this Wednesday. This process of finding jobs was absolutely hell! I applied for around 60 jobs within marketing, sales and service during the last month. It was a real catch 22 experience. For the marketing jobs I lacked experience on my CV and for the sales and service jobs I was over qualified due to my Masters degree in International Marketing. So it has been much more tough finding a slowlane job, than I ever imagined. This only fuels my motivation for keep working on growing my own business, while I will work at this slowlane job. This WILL be the last slowlane job I will ever have, and I will make my best to make sure that I will not have to stay there for a very long time.

Some boring updates:

- Finally got my slowlane job. Working for a huge company with sales and service within the B2B market. The pay is actually not that bad and I believe that I can actually learn a lot from especially selling to B2B businesses. Skills that I can later transition to my own business. This job is on a 4-month long contract with good opportunities to extend the contract - however, I am happy it is only on a 4-month contract as it fuels my motivation to be able to live of my own business in 4 months. Starting tomorrow - lets see how it goes!

- Had a tough time with all these legal issues the last month. Finally managed to legalize my business and create a business bank account. Especially the latter was really really tough! My bank has a very small business section and all other banks either wanted huge money to let me have a business account or wanted me to move my personal accounts there as well (I love my current bank, so that was not an option). Finally managed to find an option that suited me, so now I have a legal company and a business bank account!

- NO MORE FLYING UNDER THE RADAR! Looking for a slowlane job I quickly realized that whenever I talked about I was freelancing and doing online marketing for clients, people did not want to hire me as they believed I would quit the job eventually. Also a lot of the contracts I got offered had clauses about you could not work for yourself or any other companies that theirs. So I realized I could not mention anything about my own business while looking for jobs. Now I can FINALLY update my LinkedIn with my own business and start to find clients in there. Finally I have nothing to hide and everything legalized. Such a burden of my shoulders and such a huge step forward!

Some more interesting updates:

- Finally send out my first invoices - and received my first payments! Now I have a legalized business and a business bank account and the feeling of sending out those invoices and receiving money on my account is PRICELESS!

- I am still on 2 paying clients. They are both really satisfied with my work and I can see that the results are coming in. So that is amazing! I expect both of these to stay on for a long long time.

- My third trial client actually had great results as well. I made a proposal to her to become a paid client 3-4 days ago - however, I still havent heard anything back from her. She is building up her client base from scratch, so I suspect that she maybe cannot afford my services at this moment. I will not work for free anymore though and gave her a really great offer - so hopefully she will reply and accept the offer at some point.

- Running a campaign for an old friend for a little less than 2 weeks now. His concept is almost the same as my first paid client (although higher price points) So far the results have been really great and he is beyond happy!

The results for his campaign:

Campaign run-time: 11 days
Ad spend: 159 USD
LP views: 312
Cost per LP view: 0,5 USD
Sign Ups: 20
Conversion Rate (LP views/sign ups): 6,4 %
Cost per Sign Up: 7,93 USD

Basically we are offering 1 week of free training. Keep in mind that 1 month of training on his teams costs around 135 USD - so if we spend 8 USD per sign up we only need to convert 1 out of 16 in order to be profitable. This is not even accounting for his CLV. Looking forward to see how many of these sign ups actually turns up to their 1 free week and how many converts to become paying members.

My goal is to convert him to become a paying members in May and feed me with referrals! Also plan to ask him to make 2 referral videos for me I can use for marketing and add to my site. This should be good!

Plans for May:

Most of my time will of course be spent on my slowlane job, and I will also be busy with finding a new apartment ASAP. However, I have still calculated my time and I have big plans for the next month.

- Launch a Danish version of my website.
- Send out around 400 cold emails to US clients
- Test Lumpy Mail campaign to around 10-20 prospects
- Send connection requests to around 600 people on LinkedIn within my sphere
- Create 2 videos - one I will send out through Dubb to LinkedIn prospects and another I will use to retarget LinkedIn prospects and people who have viewed my site.
- Create an Instagram account for my business and target personal trainers there.

I just really need to hustle. I can see that I am creating value for people, so I just need to find more and more clients. I SHOULD be able to replace my slowlane income within 4 months. If I do not do that, it just means that I didnt hustle enough!

 

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[Natural]

Amazing to see this journey unfold my friend. I still remember our talk before you started and I think we are both surprised at how fast things have been developing. Guess that is the beautiful benefit of taking consistent action toward your goal.

I need to step up my own game now and create a thread. Then we can both drink a bottle of wine at the end of the year and skim through our threads. Let's do this!

 

[Chapas]

Day 74 - Sometimes You Need To Take A Step Back In Order To Move Forward

It sounds so cliche, yet I believe it can be true. I still have 16 days, but I realize that I will not make it to freedom just yet. So what is the plan?

We just left Montenegro. Already miss the country, but I have a couple of days layover in one of my favorite cities, Budapest. So everything ain't that bad after all.

Thursday I will be back in Denmark. It has it upsides and downsides. I wished I could have a couple of more months to keep hustling in Montenegro, but it seems like the money will not last. Also when you are married, you have another person to think of as well. Fortunately my wife is backing me up in my Fastlane plans and that really helps a lot. She comes from an upbringing where her granddad build up his own huge business 'empire' from being a poor immigrant. So fortunately she grew up in a Fastlane family!

It looks like I have to go back to the slowlane for a while. Just to get my finances back in shape. I am to join the slowlane for 2-3 months and maximum 6 months. By that time I believe I will have an income from my business that will surpass the income from my slowlane job and then I will quit.

The downside is of course that I would be spending the majority of time working for someone else. The transport will take me at least 2-4 hours a day. But that is not the biggest downside as I can work on my own business on the train. I will get exhausted during these months, but I have seen many of you guys create your businesses while working full time. You guys are a true inspiration and also therefore I believe that I can do it as well!

There are actually upsides to this decision (it's not really a decision as I do not have that much choice haha).

• First upside is a little financial stability. I really need this at this moment.
• Second my wife is non EU-citizen and in order for us to get her residency in Europe I need to stable income.
• Third is I will be very close to all of my potential clients. Not to brag about things, but I am a very likeable person and it has always been easier for me to close deals face to face. Now I will be right next to my target group and it will be so much easier to land clients than when I was in Montenegro.
• The last upside is that I will get a job in sales. This is the area I need to excel in. So I will see this slowlane job as a course. Not a course that I paid a lot of money for, but a course that is paying me money. What I learn from here I can quickly implement in my own business.

I feared this moment, but I knew it would probably come at some point. Even though I would have loved to continue working on my own business, I really need the financial stability for a couple of months.

Anyway, things are not as bad as they seems! Here are some small updates:

• As you know I landed my first client. Tomorrow I have a call with her to plan the further strategy. Also need to find out a payment option as I did not legalize my company yet. We will figure something out.
• Tomorrow I also have a call with a referral from her. A guy who participated in Tour de France and won a lot of other races like Tour of Flandern. I used to be a huge Tour de France fan when I was a kid, so really looking forward to the call. He has basically come to the point in his business where he does not have the time to do marketing himself. So I really believe that this will be my second client.
• Apart from the two calls I have signed up for Audible. So tomorrow I will walk around the beautiful city of Budapest and finally listen to Unscripted ! Tomorrow will be a good day!

I will still keep hustling when I go back to Denmark. Even more than before. Who knows. Maybe my business will take off even before I manage to find a job.

Once again thanks for the support in here. The accountability in here has really made the difference for me. I will still keep updating and don't worry. I will not come home after a long day of slowlane work and watch Netflix. I have invested to much in it and I believe that it is my path. So I will keep trying untill I will be successful. GRACIAS AMIGOS!

 

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[Chapas]

Day 16 - First "New" Client

Some small updates on the past 2 weeks. Having my wife's sister visiting and apartment hunting as our lease runs out 1st of September, means that a lot of time is spend on showing around the city and find a new place to live. I made some small progress steps still.

1. After reading through the whole of @Fox thread I decided to give web design a small chance. Especially as it can lead to upselling my marketing services later on. Found a small 8 person accounting firm and cold emailed them about a free website. They instantly agreed and love my ideas, so now I am working on a small Mockup. Decided to do the site in WordPress.

I promised myself earlier this year that I will never work for free again. However, I see this as time spent on marketing and not working for free. This firm has an annual profit of around 1 million USD before tax, so this basically means that they have at least 100 B2B businesses they work with each year. The owner suggested himself that he would recommend me to his clients if they liked my work, so I see a great opportunity here.

2. Been running some ads for my friends outdoor fitness bootcamps the last couple of months. Plenty of signups, but many people bailing out on the first training in the end.

Nevertheless, we just agreed on a commission based deal. Basically I will get 33 % of each new customer after ad expenses. This is fine as it keeps my motivation high in order to keep the CPC as low as possible.

His concept has a lot of potential and in 3 months they have gone from 1 location and 2 teams, to having 2 locations and 7 teams. I can imagine in 6 months time they will have at least 3 locations and 15 teams.

Their price point is around 150 USD a month and the average CLTV is 2 months due to it being a Bootcamp. This churn rate works in favor of me as I only get paid for new customers.

Now they have between 70-100 people on their teams and the way they are expanding makes me expect them to have at least the double of that in 6 months. Heck if I can help acquire one new customer for 30 USD a month and get 25 of them, that is already 1000 USD in the bank for me.

I believe this is a great opportunity and once we find the winning formula for one location, then we can basically just copy/paste it for the rest of the locations. Never did a commission based deal before, but if this one works out for me I might be doing some more in the future.

This was just some small updates from my side. Have an amazing day friends!

 

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[Chapas]

Day 8

Pretty quiet day. Sometimes you need to shut off your brain and spend the day on other things. Went down to the beach for some hours and have just been looking at some videos about targeting.

Still managed to get 3 new opportunities today.

1. My first chiro lead who was interested. Asked about how big a budget they should start out with, and said that she needed to discuss it with her partner in her business.

2. One dude who contacted me because I have cold emailed a personal trainer who was his client. Apparently we have some common connections back home, so he had asked around about me and got told that I was a good guy. Always nice to hear people talking good about you! I am not quite sure what he does, but I am pretty sure he does not offer the same thing as me. So have a scheduled call with him tomorrow. Will be interesting to see. He has been a personal trainer for Olympic athletes before, so hope I somehow can show him the value I offer and benefit from his huge network. Trying to view him as a possible partner than a competitor.

3. One personal trainer who has her own concept with 4 or 5 trainers involved. Says she has played around with Facebook for 6 years and has tried different agencies before without any good results. Have a scheduled call with her tomorrow as well. Really hope to land her as the first trial client.

Really want my first trial client so I can create some results for them. And I believe that I will get one soon. I have the further steps planned out, so once I get a couple of clients in my portfolio I know that the business will take off really really quickly.

Excited for tomorrow. Here is a picture from today from the lovely little gem that Montenegro is! Wish me luck!

 

[Chapas]

Day 9 - Landed My First Trial Client

So the day is still young. It's 3 pm in Montenegro. Yet I had two very interesting calls today.

1st call: One guy with huge experience and network in the fitness industry. He now runs his own agency where he helps personal trainers optimize their business. They only do websites, strategy and consulting. He told me they had found an agency doing FB Ads to their clients, but this agency is a big one and their are to busy to take on their clients. He liked what I had to offer and we agreed to talk again in the beginning of the new year. Interesting opportunity. I might take some margin losses here, but if they can provide me with their clients each and every month that would be golden!

2nd call: One lady with her own outdoor fitness concept where she has 8 trainers working under her. Very interesting prospect as they have a variety of very good products and a really great concept. After a 45 minute long call I landed her as my first trial client! We will launch her campaign in the first week of January when everyone returns from overeating and overdrinking with a goal to get in shape and lose weight. Perfect timing. The thing is, I genuinely like this client. Her drive and desire to live from her passion really affected me. So cannot wait to help her get more clients and optimize her business.

Further plans for today:

1: Might have a call with an old friend of mine who is a part time terapeut and NLP coach. She wants to go full time in the new year, and I am pretty sure that I will get her as a trial client as well.

2: Need to send a followup email to all my dentists. This is the last time before Christmas.

3: A call with my accountability partner. Cannot wait to tell him my progress from last we talked last week.

I am impressed over how far I have come in the last 9 days. If I keep going like this I think my life will be completely changed in a year. I feel like I am creating value for myself, my clients and their clients. Thank you guys for inspiring and motivating me!

 

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[PizzaOnTheRoof]

If not sales, what results do you sell them? Pretty pictures and words?

They’re not buying the results, they’re buying the process. The results keep them coming back...

...because we can’t guarantee them good results.

You should run from any marketer that guarantees you a certain result.

I have a few issues with performance-based pricing:

1. The PPC manager assumes 100% if the risk. No results? Oh well, the client carries on and the manager can never get that time back. At least with a flat-rate, they can still break even for their time.
2. What’s stopping the client from walking away after they see success?
3. What if the client simply lies about the number of sales generated?
4. If sales dollars are the KPI here, then you better hope your client can close those leads. This is out of your control yet could cost you your income.

*If you're advertising for an e-commerce store, you can disregard #3 and #4.
​

Performance or commission based pricing assumes the marketer 100% of the risk yet relies on having a competent businesses owner/sales team to make something of if work.

Marketers are an integral part of any business. We're not salesmen.

 

[Chapas]

Day 66 - Feeling Like A Robot

So today was a robot day - aka lead generation day. The boring work has to be done as well. Managed to collect 180 leads on CrossFit gyms. Those are my main focus now as I have a real successful Case Study to show them.

Tomorrow I will try to send out the first 100 personalized emails. I started using something called Yet Another Mail Merger. I really love this tool and it helps me to personalize the emails and then send them out.

Been watching a lot of Alex Berman recently on Youtube and got really inspired on his success with Cold Emails. So I will try my best to send out 100 emails a day.

Sent out 50 emails 2 days ago, and got a 80 % open-rate. Only 2 replies. One was interested and the other one was just polite to reply that he was not interested. I have analyzed my emails and will change them a bit. I believe that the response rate will go up. The interested owner had not booked a time yet on my Calendly, so will write him tomorrow and propose a time for him.

Of other updates I have sent a proposal to my trial client. She is travelling right now, but promised to read my long email one of these days. I honestly made a very favourable price for her, so if she does not accept the offer, then she will really miss out on something. Also gave her incentives for bringing me referrals. So wish me luck on this one!

Plans before 1st of April:

- Set up company in Denmark when I go back in a couple of weeks.
- Send 2700 US/Canada/UK cold emails.
- Send 270 DK cold emails.
- Send out 500 US LinkedIn connection requests.
- Send out 400 DK LinkedIn connection requests.
- Send out 50 DK snail mails.

If I can keep that pace I strongly believe that I can land at least 5-6 clients before 1st of April. Let the hustle continue!

 

[Chapas]

Day 80 - WATCH OUT! The Slowlane Virus Is Amongst Us!

OMG it is weird to be home. Have been home for a little more than 4 days and I am already going crazy. I have been used to moving a lot and I know that nothing usually has changed when I get back home. And of course - also this time nothing has changed in the last 3 months while I have been gone. Except from one thing: ME!

The slowlane mentality of my friends and family are seriously already getting on my nerves. And you know what? I am so F*cking happy about this. This means that I will NEVER go back to the life I have lived before. Even though I will have to work some months in a slowlane job now. My approach and mentality has changed SO much!

I returned home Thursday and every day since then I have been exposed to the Slowlane Virus. Friday I spent 10 minutes explain my friend that I did not want to go out partying because I had so much work to do, and he really did not understand it.

He was like "Nobody work on Friday evenings", "You should enjoy your weekends" and "Do you really think you will get anything done on a Friday evening?". Deeeeeear lord. This is a guy who works every Sunday as a realtor and has no complaints about it - because that is how life is. You work when your boss tell you to work.

Every day has been the same. I love my friends and family, but I feel like they are dragging me down. When I one day will succeed with my projects, my first goal would be to help them all change their mindset and create a happier life for themselves.

Enough with the rant! I will try to not let things distract me. Will make some updates in the next couple of days. Thank you guys for tuning in. Will stop bitching from now on and keep hustling and hustling untill I will reach freedom. Leeeets do this!

 

[Chapas]

Day 83 - Long Live Referrals

Just landed my second monthly client. Due to a referral from my first monthly client. LONG LIVE REFERRALS!

Current Monthly Revenue: 800 USD

Still a long way to go. However, it feels really motivating that people appreciate the work and service you are providing. What I actually learned from this one is that I could have asked a much higher price. I could tell by our conversation that he did not even blink twice when I mentioned my price. So I will think about increasing my price in the near future. He has a really nice concept and a HUGE network, so really looking forward to work with him!

Goals For March:

- Get at least 2 more clients - so my revenue will be around 1800-2000 USD
- Find a slowlane job for the next 3-6 months = at least 4000 USD in revenue
- Legalize my company
- Buy my DK domain and translate website to Danish
- Create 2 videos for LinkedIn Strategy + Retargeting
- Create 4 Blog Posts for my Facebook Page + for LinkedIn

Cannot wait to gain my freedom and move to a country where it does not rain every day haha!

 

[Longinus]

Btw, any idea for a follow-up strategy with cold emails? I wrote my prospects Saturday. Is it to early to write a follow-up email already today to those that did not reply? And how to write a follow-up email that does not sound to pushy?

Why don't you call them to follow up after 5-6 days?

 

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[lowtek]

Super Impressed with the cold email results. Any chance you'd be willing to share what your copy looked like?

I have cold emailed quite a bit without getting any replies, so I have taken some time to study up on the different strategies.

Keep up the great work!

Check out Alex Berman's channel on YT. His earlier videos dealt with cold emailing. Haven't watched him in quite a while so I don't know if that's what he still talks about.

 

[Chapas]

Day 13 - The Calm Before The Storm

Christmas time means that I am not sending out any cold emails, and not getting any new replies. Nevertheless, one lead that went quiet for a while replied to my follow-up email and I have a phone call with her on Friday! She is a PT and I can see she has been on TV and been on the cover of some of our national magazines. So I guess she might have a good network aswell (referrals, referrals, referrals!!!!). She sounds very interested, so hope that I can close her on Friday.

Finally Doing The Fun Stuff!

So I have 2 trial clients now. A lady with her own fitness concept that consists of 8-9 trainers, and an old friend of mine who is a psychotherapist/personal coach. Today I finally signed up for Click Funnels (WUHUU). And I absolutely love it! Russell Brunson, if I were a woman I would probably want to have your babies! Genious stuff. So easy to use and so nice visuals!

Created two different funnels for both of my trial clients. They absolutely loved it! So I would say that I am pretty happy about that, given that I only used Click Funnels for about 2 hours. I also decided to create a possible funnel for my lead on Friday, and sent it to her today with some of my ideas. Hopefully, she would love it aswell!

Plans For The Next Days

I am going away to another city in Montenegro called Budva for a couple of days to check it out. So will probably not get SO much done. Still bringing my laptop though so I can hustle a bit in the evenings.

- Plan NUMERO UNO is to nail that call on Friday and get my 3rd trial client.

- Optimize my Click Funnels for the two first trial clients, so we are ready to launch around 3rd/4th of January.

- Find 20 more Danish and 20 more American leads. Not sure I will get that done in Budva, but otherwise I will get it done when I am back on Friday.

Thank you for reading and keeeeeeeep hustlin´ towards your goals!

 

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