Journey to self employment 2024

[cornishpasty]

This year, Ive set myself a goal to be self employed by year end.

In my current job, with my salary and commission combined, I’m making roughly £4K per month. That is my magic number for me to cut my employment ties.

Ive reverse engineered it and I know what I need to do to hit that. I started learning web design in October last year and have just got my second paid portfolio client this month, so I’ll look to move onto full clients from here on out, raise prices and keep pushing and see where that can take me.

There’s more than enough opportunity for this skill to cover my current salary, & from there the plan is to branch out into more fastlane pursuits.

I won’t add much more, as talk is cheap, but I’ll keep this here to update regularly. Plan for next week is wrap up 1 current project and send 100 cold emails out per day.

 

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[SnowLava]

This year, Ive set myself a goal to be self employed by year end.

In my current job, with my salary and commission combined, I’m making roughly £4K per month. That is my magic number for me to cut my employment ties.

Ive reverse engineered it and I know what I need to do to hit that. I started learning web design in October last year and have just got my second paid portfolio client this month, so I’ll look to move onto full clients from here on out, raise prices and keep pushing and see where that can take me.

There’s more than enough opportunity for this skill to cover my current salary, & from there the plan is to branch out into more fastlane pursuits.

I won’t add much more, as talk is cheap, but I’ll keep this here to update regularly. Plan for next week is wrap up 1 current project and send 100 cold emails out per day.

Thats great and inspiring! What made you choose web design specifically? And how did you get your first clients? Were they people you knew or were they cold outreaches?

 

[cornishpasty]

Thats great and inspiring! What made you choose web design specifically? And how did you get your first clients? Were they people you knew or were they cold outreaches?

I knew I had no real tangible skills that I could sell so I just decided to learn one. Web design is discussed a lot on the forum so I went for it. I basically followed the steps in @Fox ‘s gold thread about how he did it.

I’ve gotten my first couple of clients through cold emailing local businesses. I didn’t know them prior to reaching out.

 

[Trismigistus]

Great job!

 

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[Fox]

I’ve gotten my first couple of clients through cold emailing local businesses. I didn’t know them prior to reaching out.

Great job, tag me in if you need any help!

 

[cornishpasty]

First project successfully wrapped up and live today - the guy has kindly given me a tip and will promote me in a few of his boosted facebook announcements that he uses to get customers. Got to make sure my own website is now built in time for that post. have been hitting my 100 emails a day target so far this week but my reply rate has dropped, which is probably a combination of a couple of things:

Firstly, my copy has changed. it's less personal as i am targeting businesses outside of my local area & I am heavily focused on volume, so i guess personalisation is suffering as a result. Also, I am no longer offering to do it for a low price. I'll keep at this strategy and copy until i have a bigger pool of data but at the minute it's heading towards a likely revision & pivot.

Now I have this first site live, I'm gonna double down on that niche and see what I can get out of it and use the project as leverage. It's a pretty good industry: not seasonal, high ticket services, straightforward to add value to.

Also need to plan what I want to do with this first bit of cash flow. It's not much but enough to play around with. Perhaps get a simple landing page set up over the weekend and run some cheap ads to it. Maybe spend it on a VA and get them to split test some email copy, i will need to have a think about it.

 

[Oso]

I knew I had no real tangible skills that I could sell so I just decided to learn one. Web design is discussed a lot on the forum so I went for it. I basically followed the steps in @Fox ‘s gold thread about how he did it.

I’ve gotten my first couple of clients through cold emailing local businesses. I didn’t know them prior to reaching out.

Lol. Is there any way we can pin this at the top of the forum for all of the new members who come to this forum crying about being broke?

Kudos, OP. Kudos. Keep it up!

Cheers.

 

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[Solipsismo]

First project successfully wrapped up and live today - the guy has kindly given me a tip and will promote me in a few of his boosted facebook announcements that he uses to get customers. Got to make sure my own website is now built in time for that post. have been hitting my 100 emails a day target so far this week but my reply rate has dropped, which is probably a combination of a couple of things:

Firstly, my copy has changed. it's less personal as i am targeting businesses outside of my local area & I am heavily focused on volume, so i guess personalisation is suffering as a result. Also, I am no longer offering to do it for a low price. I'll keep at this strategy and copy until i have a bigger pool of data but at the minute it's heading towards a likely revision & pivot.

Now I have this first site live, I'm gonna double down on that niche and see what I can get out of it and use the project as leverage. It's a pretty good industry: not seasonal, high ticket services, straightforward to add value to.

Also need to plan what I want to do with this first bit of cash flow. It's not much but enough to play around with. Perhaps get a simple landing page set up over the weekend and run some cheap ads to it. Maybe spend it on a VA and get them to split test some email copy, i will need to have a think about it.

Hey, I am following you, because I have recently started the course by Fox, actually some weeks ago, and I want to do the same. Do you wanna network with me?

 

[cornishpasty]

Hey, I am following you, because I have recently started the course by Fox, actually some weeks ago, and I want to do the same. Do you wanna network with me?

DM’d you mate

 

[Francy.Z]

This year, Ive set myself a goal to be self employed by year end.

In my current job, with my salary and commission combined, I’m making roughly £4K per month. That is my magic number for me to cut my employment ties.

Ive reverse engineered it and I know what I need to do to hit that. I started learning web design in October last year and have just got my second paid portfolio client this month, so I’ll look to move onto full clients from here on out, raise prices and keep pushing and see where that can take me.

There’s more than enough opportunity for this skill to cover my current salary, & from there the plan is to branch out into more fastlane pursuits.

I won’t add much more, as talk is cheap, but I’ll keep this here to update regularly. Plan for next week is wrap up 1 current project and send 100 cold emails out per day.

I like how straightforward this is. For someone who's been focusing on copywriting (mostly email-campaigns) for the past few months, this encouraged me to keep going. (I haven't landed a client yet; I've been focusing too much on practice, instead of outreach)
Thanks and keep it up!

 

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[Sean P]

Got to make sure my own website is now built in time for that post. have been hitting my 100 emails a day target so far this week but my reply rate has dropped, which is probably a combination of a couple of things:

Your responses may have decreased due to various factors. The email could be landing in the spam folder or may not even be reaching those who you send them to. You need to use a business email service or at least a domain to send so many emails every day. You also need to do a warm up so that Google starts trusting your email account and lets the emails through to their destination. I suggest that you do some research on how to send bulk emails to businesses because it is more complex than you might imagine. Another way is to send them a message on Facebook on their Facebook pages but the issue is that most business pages are run by private agencies who may not forward your messages to the business.

 

[cornishpasty]

Your responses may have decreased due to various factors. The email could be landing in the spam folder or may not even be reaching those who you send them to. You need to use a business email service or at least a domain to send so many emails every day. You also need to do a warm up so that Google starts trusting your email account and lets the emails through to their destination. I suggest that you do some research on how to send bulk emails to businesses because it is more complex than you might imagine. Another way is to send them a message on Facebook on their Facebook pages but the issue is that most business pages are run by private agencies who may not forward your messages to the business.

Sounds a bit chatGPTish but yeah I have done a lot of research on this - I’ve got 4 sub-emails that I’ve warmed up that all auto forward to my main business email.

I stagger my emails through each one so that they are less likely to seem spammy and have 3 different cold email templates I switch between so that I’m not sending the exact same email over and over.

I also use unbounce so hopefully I’m doing all I can to avoid landing in spam

 

[Deleted137598]

I knew I had no real tangible skills that I could sell so I just decided to learn one. Web design is discussed a lot on the forum so I went for it. I basically followed the steps in @Fox ‘s gold thread about how he did it.

I’ve gotten my first couple of clients through cold emailing local businesses. I didn’t know them prior to reaching out.

Your progress is pretty good. Just in addition to that, I would like to recommend that you check out Upwork. There are lots of web design projects posted on there everyday. A lot of clients looking for designers, I hope it helps.

 

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[Sean P]

Sounds a bit chatGPTish but yeah I have done a lot of research on this - I’ve got 4 sub-emails that I’ve warmed up that all auto forward to my main business email.

Not sure why you would find my post ChatGPT-ish - very strange really!!

I don't post much but I have been a member since 2014. I am a great fan of MJ and his books.

I've been doing email marketing for over a decade now, and thought it might be useful - if not for you for others who read this thread.

Good for you if you know so much. Maybe you should have added it to your first post. To each his own.

For those who are observing the communication style being used by the OP, it will be easy to figure out why the "reply rate has dropped."

In fact to some this thread might sound like a plug for a web design course or service (not in any way referring to the one talked about in this forum which is very good).

Not sure what your agenda is but if it is legit I hope you succeed with whatever it is.

 

[cornishpasty]

Done a lot of work to my own site this weekend so hopefully will have this updated and live by the end of the week.

Have a couple of leads to chase and also received a great email this morning from an e-commerce business that is based about half an hour from me.

Their online store is a bit of a mess so I sent her some helpful tips and she came back to me asking to have a further chat.

I didn’t even suggest a call or a sale to her in the email - just gave her some practical tips. Hopefully will speak this week and get the wheels in motion for this one - lots of problems I can help her solve.

With this I think my strategy this week will be to focus more on quality, personalised emails in my outreach.

I’ll half my daily emails goal, and make a point to make sure each one is personalised and genuinely helpful, rather than self serving.

My other goal this week will be to get my own website site live. Even if it’s not perfect, something needs to be live on my domain by next Sunday.

 

[cornishpasty]

In case anyone might find it helpful - my email to the business. Any feedback appreciated too

 

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[cornishpasty]

Damn, Friday keeps coming around so quickly!

Hit my goal of getting my website finished - she is live as of yesterday morning. by no means the finished product but it's live and it works and that's what matters right now.

Didn't hit my goal of 50 personalised emails per day. After Monday i quickly realised that just wasn't feasible with the time i have available. reduced this to 30 per day, still struggled but have hit that every day.

Got to say, the personalisation has helped massively in response rate. Even getting emails telling me to get lost im enjoying because they've responded.

Have got 2 follow up calls next week as well as trying to catch the ecommerce business in my last post. she is super busy but having gone back and forth a little over email it seems she has a lot of problems outside of web design that she needs help with (social media management, paid ads, email marketing) so it could be a mega learner project for me and a chance to provide loads of value. she wants to speak early next week over the phone - I also might go down to their factory on one of my wfh days as it's not far from me - we'll see.

Other than that just repeating this email process, im expecting my 1st portfolio client to post his fb ad plugging my website & fb page next week too so we'll see if we can get anything out of that. also setup a profile on upwork.

Lastly, this afternoon, i followed this thread by @Andy Black & setup a simple ad going to my new site. took me about 45 minutes in total to get it live, let's see what it can show me.

Targets/goals next week:
30 personalised emails per day
Move into proposal stage with at least 1 prospect

 

[cornishpasty]

Very unsexy week - outbound consistency has stalled a bit due to poor time management. Easy to fix.

Google ads had a pretty good ctr but I don’t think the landing page is optimized so I’ve paused while I play around with that.

Had a good meeting with the local ecom biz, think we should get some more movement on that next week and great potential she’s just so busy. Also got my first referral on Friday which feels very sweet.

Goals this week:
Finish off 2nd portfolio project
Start referral project
40 personalised outreaches a day

 

[cornishpasty]

Been a couple of weeks since my last update - i've had my head down and changed quite a few things.

email outreach was stalling for me, so i've begun supplementing with cold calls too. if i could solely do cold calling i would, but i am in the office 3 days a week for my job so can't do any cold calling then, so instead I email on those days. im currently building a follow-up sequence on lemlist that should make the email outreach less manual. hope to have this sorted by next monday.

cold calls have been great for me so far (which is a no-brainer as ive been doing cold calls in my job for the past 3 years). i make about 60-70 per day on my 2 days wfh, and book a meeting approximately every 35 calls. I can and should up the daily volume on this number. I really want to bombard myself with more work than i know what to do with, as opposed to pausing outreach when i get a project, which is what i did during my portfolio sites.

the conversational nature of cold calling makes it so much better than emailing. for example, i called a guy last week, offering him a new website. he explained that he didn't need a website but needed help with building his social media presence & help with local service ads. we had a follow up call on monday and next week we will hopefully be in a position to start working together on a monthly retainer. I don't think i would have gotten this opportunity if i had just cold emailed him.

Have got a couple of meetings this week and closed a couple of deposits earlier in the week for some simple websites. Managed to sell a maintenance package to one guy so moving in the right direction! Monthly revenue goal of £4,000 has in the last couple of weeks edged slightly closer.

 

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[cornishpasty]

Need to be more consistent with my thread here - but things are going well.

Cold calling has been consistently getting me results in the past few weeks. I’ve closed 2 website deals and with each website I’m raising my prices.

I’ve got 2 clients on small maintenance packages and I closed the guy I was speaking about in my last post, and I’m now managing his social media accounts for him, there’s a lot of opportunity to work with him for a long time and grow our partnership.

Finally, I did some more work on one of my portfolio clients as he wanted some new photos put on there and his VAT number. He said that he’s had call ins referencing the site and lots of customers coming through the contact form I built for him, so really cool to see it having a genuinely good impact on his business.

Going well, got to keep up this momentum.

 

[cornishpasty]

I realised this is a process and progress thread but I’ve not shared much about my process.

Working my 9-5 means my time is already limited - but here is exactly how I structure my side hustle around my job.

My job starts at 8:30am, so I get into the office at 5:50am with my personal laptop and get set up and work on my side hustle from 6am - 8am every morning no questions asked. Sometimes these 2 hours are used to lead source, other times to fulfil work for a client. Sometimes both.

I work in the office Monday, Tuesday and Thursday so cold calling is out of the question on those days. I did try cold calling after work, from 6pm onwards but most people were not in the headspace to talk and just asked to speak the next morning.

Instead I spend an hour after work doing client fulfilment or lead sourcing. On Wednesday and Friday when I wfh I get the majority of my job stuff done and out of the way in the morning so the afternoon is solid cold calling for my side hustle.

Here’s how I source my leads and manage my outreach:

Get lists from d7 lead finder —-> move onto a google sheets form. I usually do this in the 6am-8am slot before I start my job. I then start by looking at their website, seeing if there’s anything I can improve, if not, look at their socials, can I improve that? If not, I cull them.

If I can improve either the website or socials I then look for the owner’s name. Usually you can find this in the about page on their site or failing that, their Google reviews will usually mention their name e.g. “Mark and his team were great”.

Then I call through the list of remaining leads, open by telling them it’s a sales call, and lead with a problem / question.

It might not be the most efficient medium of outreach but it is the most direct and I find I’ve gotten the most bang for my buck in terms of material conversations.

To book a follow up meeting via email I was sending out 200 to get a positive response. With cold calls I can be pretty sure that if I’ve got 50 new leads to call then I’ll at least book 1 if not 2 meetings from that.

I don’t do any admin for the prospects e.g. follow up emails / sending calendar invites until I’ve made ALL of my calls in that time block. If I kept stopping after every call to send an email or a meeting invite then it would break my flow - I just add a very quick note and then call the next number. Then I bulk my admin stuff in a 30 minute slot following my cold call block.

Very simple process that is providing me with tangible results thus far. In total I am working about 15 hours per week on my side hustle.

 

[Bounce Back]

I realised this is a process and progress thread but I’ve not shared much about my process.

Working my 9-5 means my time is already limited - but here is exactly how I structure my side hustle around my job.

My job starts at 8:30am, so I get into the office at 5:50am with my personal laptop and get set up and work on my side hustle from 6am - 8am every morning no questions asked. ...

Ladies and gents this is what starting a business/side hustle really looks like. Bravo putting in the work cornishpasty.

 

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