Gained an extreme confidence boost from execution

[artisanwebworks]

I feel like I've finally earned the right to make a thread for myself. After I binge read "Unscripted ", I found the Fastlane forum and it didn't take long for me to find @Fox's post for his web design course. I paid for the course and started binging on his content, and at the same time binge read TMF .

It's been 4 months since then and I've landed 3 web design projects and possibly one more on the way. First project was free, second project was $200, and the third project was $1000. I feel the mental shackles falling off of me every time I manage to push through a mental hurdle.

The intent of this post is not to brag, but to motivate, encourage and keep myself accountable for future success and growth. As much as I'm learning, the journey is quite painful and the feeling of wanting to give up creeps up occasionally. Luckily, I'm fully convinced that this is my new life now and I'm not going to go back to a corporate job unless I absolutely have to. My long term plan is to build a Fastlane business from what I learn here. If I get there, I'll be posting about that here too.

If you're reading this and have any questions about my journey feel free to ask.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Thanks @Fox and Thank you @MJ DeMarco for providing life changing content for such an affordable price.

 

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[Fox]

I feel like I've finally earned the right to make a thread for myself. After I binge read "Unscripted ", I found the Fastlane forum and it didn't take long for me to find @Fox's post for his web design course. I paid for the course and started binging on his content, and at the same time binge read TMF .

It's been 4 months since then and I've landed 3 web design projects and possibly one more on the way. First project was free, second project was $200, and the third project was $1000. I feel the mental shackles falling off of me every time I manage to push through a mental hurdle.

The intent of this post is not to brag, but to motivate, encourage and keep myself accountable for future success and growth. As much as I'm learning, the journey is quite painful and the feeling of wanting to give up creeps up occasionally. Luckily, I'm fully convinced that this is my new life now and I'm not going to go back to a corporate job unless I absolutely have to. My long term plan is to build a Fastlane business from what I learn here. If I get there, I'll be posting about that here too.

If you're reading this and have any questions about my journey feel free to ask.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Thanks @Fox and Thank you @MJ DeMarco for providing life changing content for such an affordable price.

Very nice - great progress there.

Just keep building up the skills, and then when you are ready look for bigger ways to leverage them.

Web design is great for getting going, but try see how to use your skills in a bigger way when you are ready.

Tag me in again if you need any help at any stage.

 

[artisanwebworks]

Thanks @Fox, I will certainly do that.

---

For anyone curious, here's what I was doing in the last 4 months.

Context: Previously, I tried doing Amazon Wholesale for the past 3 years and failed. Also tried to launch a e-commerce store and failed. Thankfully I was laid-off from my job so I had a lot of time. Yes, I chose to look at losing my job as a fantastic opportunity that I decided to take FULL advantage of.

Month 1
Week 1

• Reading TMF (Roughly 5 Chapters a day or more)
• Watching Rob's courses (8+ videos per day while taking notes in Notion)

Week 2

• Finished reading TMF
• Finished watching the entire course
• Had a friend I reconnected with who just made his own website for his business. Said it was stressing him out. I offered to do it for free for him.

Week 3-5

*This phase was extremely stressful and had a lot of self doubt since I was overwhelmed with how much I didn't know about web design and making web sites. This was the desert that MJ talks about. But having nothing better to do and the fear of having to go back to a 9-5 job being greater, I pushed on.

• I declined two job interviews that would have paid me around $100K annually. This was a critical pivot point for me mentally where I finally was all in for my future as an entrepreneur.
• Started working with the friend to build his website in Webflow since I didn't want to code.
• Realized I don't know the first thing about Webflow so started binge watching some of the Webflow University content and Youtube tutorials.
• Started reading The Great Rat Race but decided that wasn't what I needed at the moment... so instead started Reading The Story Brand by Donald Miller for website structure and copywriting.
• Continued to watch Extra course material from Rob's course about copywriting and local SEO
• I reached out to a friend who is a graphic designer who taught me the fundamentals of design and the tools he uses to create awesome designs and branding for large companies like Microsoft. Without this guy, I would not be able to design websites at a high level this early on. Don't worry, I bought him a nice steak dinner.

Month 2-4

• Gathered the courage to send out an email to my old wedding photographer. Got two more websites out of it. One for my wedding photographer, one for her husband who is a founder of a real estate group. He offered to give me connections if I can bring him leads. We'll see how that goes... Don't know how to do SEO yet so waiting to gather the money to buy Steve Deane's course on SEO to be of any use in this area.
• Finished my first website and my friend was very happy with it. I don't like to do things half assed for people. In light of giving as much value as I can, I ended up re-designing and redoing my friends website a total of three times because as I was learning new things, I noticed mistakes I was making with his website.
• Finished reading Business made simple by Donald Miller. It was a good read. I liked the metaphor it used of likening a business to a plane. The body is the overhead expenses and other necessary payments to run the business, the wings are the product/service, the fuel as cashflow, the engines as the sales and marketing, etc.
• Started reading Marketing made simple now LOL I'm on that Donald Miller grind. Thought having marketing experience might be good for my own business but also I could sell email marketing as a service to businesses maybe and will help me with thinking about website copy.

 

[Michael Ankrah]

Thanks @Fox, I will certainly do that.

---

For anyone curious, here's what I was doing in the last 4 months.

Context: Previously, I tried doing Amazon Wholesale for the past 3 years and failed. Also tried to launch a e-commerce store and failed. Thankfully I was laid-off from my job so I had a lot of time. Yes, I chose to look at losing my job as a fantastic opportunity that I decided to take FULL advantage of.

Month 1
Week 1

• Reading TMF (Roughly 5 Chapters a day or more)
• Watching Rob's courses (8+ videos per day while taking notes in Notion)

Week 2

• Finished reading TMF
• Finished watching the entire course
• Had a friend I reconnected with who just made his own website for his business. Said it was stressing him out. I offered to do it for free for him.

Week 3-5

*This phase was extremely stressful and had a lot of self doubt since I was overwhelmed with how much I didn't know about web design and making web sites. This was the desert that MJ talks about. But having nothing better to do and the fear of having to go back to a 9-5 job being greater, I pushed on.

• I declined two job interviews that would have paid me around $100K annually. This was a critical pivot point for me mentally where I finally was all in for my future as an entrepreneur.
• Started working with the friend to build his website in Webflow since I didn't want to code.
• Realized I don't know the first thing about Webflow so started binge watching some of the Webflow University content and Youtube tutorials.
• Started reading The Great Rat Race but decided that wasn't what I needed at the moment... so instead started Reading The Story Brand by Donald Miller for website structure and copywriting.
• Continued to watch Extra course material from Rob's course about copywriting and local SEO
• I reached out to a friend who is a graphic designer who taught me the fundamentals of design and the tools he uses to create awesome designs and branding for large companies like Microsoft. Without this guy, I would not be able to design websites at a high level this early on. Don't worry, I bought him a nice steak dinner.

Month 2-4

• Gathered the courage to send out an email to my old wedding photographer. Got two more websites out of it. One for my wedding photographer, one for her husband who is a founder of a real estate group. He offered to give me connections if I can bring him leads. We'll see how that goes... Don't know how to do SEO yet so waiting to gather the money to buy Steve Deane's course on SEO to be of any use in this area.
• Finished my first website and my friend was very happy with it. I don't like to do things half assed for people. In light of giving as much value as I can, I ended up re-designing and redoing my friends website a total of three times because as I was learning new things, I noticed mistakes I was making with his website.
• Finished reading Business made simple by Donald Miller. It was a good read. I liked the metaphor it used of likening a business to a plane. The body is the overhead expenses and other necessary payments to run the business, the wings are the product/service, the fuel as cashflow, the engines as the sales and marketing, etc.
• Started reading Marketing made simple now LOL I'm on that Donald Miller grind. Thought having marketing experience might be good for my own business but also I could sell email marketing as a service to businesses maybe and will help me with thinking about website copy.

What’s the update now man?

 

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[artisanwebworks]

What’s the update now man?

Thanks for asking. Here's my update.
---
- Since the last post, I've gotten a couple of referrals that didn't work out.
- I bought a course on SEO and have taken on a SEO client after building out their real estate website.

Currently I'm focused on helping my client grow their website but I'm realizing as I'm doing this that there is so much to learn and the real estate niche is a very competitive market. However, I haven't given up and currently doing what I can for them. I'm getting paid a good amount to do this as a newbie so I'm not complaining.

Doing business is still hard and the feeling of uncertainty and stress is constant. I even had several emotional breakdowns in the past few months but I'm still going forward.

I've gotten a full-time job that is completely remote thankfully. So although I have less time to work on my business, I save a lot of time by cutting out the commute.

The biggest hurdle for me right now is the fear of rejection which is so freaking hard to get over. Cold calling and cold emails scare me more than they should. I've done only a few of them but need to do it more.