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Moved to Scottsdale, Growing a Web Design Firm

GuitarManDan

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Can you recite how you diffused it? What did you say?

Without guessing, I would have said something like, "We really wanted to work with your business but feared we didn't have the capacity and human resources to complete it in a fashion that would work for your company, much less satisfy our own standards."

Hey MJ,

I can’t take credit for this one - it was all @Fox he recognized this guy has a huge ego so he drafted up this that I sent over:

“Hey David,

Seems like I messed up that email so that is on me. What I was trying to get across was that I don’t feel like my experience is right for what you need at this point. The last thing I would want is to not over deliver on what you need.

I take feedback like this really serious so I would love to learn how I could have written that better and any other way to improve. I joined the networking group to learn so any insight into this would be of great value.

Apologies for the misunderstanding - let me know your thoughts and happy to jump on a call if needed.

Dan”
 

GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

I've been working like crazy and just putting my head down and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my best month so far with this business, by a good amount.

For the month of September my business brought in around $11,500 and it was my first 5 figure month from a cashflow perspective. I still have a long way to go with my recurring revenue goals, but I can't complain about the wins I've had with some of the larger web design contracts, even if they are one-offs and not recurring monthly income.

It's amazingly entertaining how much more often close family members have been throwing the "lucky" word around with the recent wins that I've had. Same way that it's described in the books, people don't see the high levels of stress, doubt, frustration, etc. (the process) and they just see the monthly figure (the event) that I brought in this month.

Maybe it's the imposter syndrome, but I still feel like I haven't done anything yet and there's still a long road ahead, but I've been really enjoying the progress of all of this and learning/adapting. The main goals for the immediate future is to keep bumping up that recurring monthly income and closing the larger web design contracts.

For the more long-term future (maybe in the last 6-18 months), the goal is to start looking for opportunities for my next move and the next business with my sights aimed at something that has a much larger ceiling than this current business. Building up that recurring revenue from SEO will help bring in steady income while I can focus on the next business.

I honestly have no idea where to even start with that but it's exciting to think about and I know I've learned so much from this business that I can hit the ground running for the next thing.
 
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GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

For my client on the fence, special shoutout to @JordanK and @Fox for helping me come up with a solid email to reach out and let them know I'm willing to work with them if need be. I sent over an email that said:

"Hey (Name) - I know we originally agreed upon $1500 per month for SEO services, but I know these are unprecedented times. I really want to continue working with your business as I know that the leads I will be able to generate will be a huge help on the other end of this crisis. What would work for you and your business in terms of a temporary agreement/payment structure until things get back to normal?"

She wrote back "How about we pay the normal $1500 for this month and let's decide before the next invoice, based on how the situation progresses".

They just went ahead and paid so April is another solid month already ($8k already collected for this month)! Huge relief given the craziness that's happening in the world right now. Updated numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $29,232.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $4,533 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal
 
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GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

It's been a busy month so I'll provide a quick summary of what I've been up to, what the future plans are, what challenges I've dealt with and what's gone well so far:
  • Overall Revenue Milestone - Since my last post, officially crossed the 2x mark in revenue for 2020 vs. 2019 (last year I believe I did around $54k or so). What's nice is that I know from my time in corporate America, regardless of how much I make per month, I basically spend the exact same amount so I've been saving a lot this year. I need to pick @JordanK and others brains who are experts in the real estate industry on what I should be doing with my extra savings now. I've been storing some away to combat inflation, but I know I could be doing more and I'm sure there are opportunities out there now (although I know the Phoenix/Scottsdale market has been on fire with everyone remotely working and moving to warmer climates).
  • Building Out Business Systems / Outsourcing - I hired a VA in the Philippines to help me with a system I created for outreach. It was a great learning experience and any challenges that we ran into (which were expected from my time managing teams offshore teams in my Corporate days), it helped me update the procedures I created and really fine tune my process. I'm going to keep going with this until I have enough data to compare to other outsourced outreach systems (I had a friend doing Google Ads for me with a budget of $500 per month which worked decently well). Will compare and see which one makes more sense.
  • Removing Myself From Doing the Actual Work - I've been doing this for almost 3 years now and although I've worked a lot this year on building out systems to outsource some of the work, it's time to really work to move into just doing sales/management at this point to treat this more like a real business. I've made a commitment that any new clients that are onboarded now I will be outsourcing 100% of the day-to-day work and I'll just handle client relations and sales.
  • Adding in New Service - I've been leaving money on the table, at first this became clear when I was just doing web design and added in SEO, but I know now that I should be offering Google Ads/PPC services as well and it's time to step into that. I have a lot of trusted contacts in that space that I usually just refer that out and it doesn't make sense to keep doing that. A lot of clients just may not be a fit for SEO, but I've built a large network of contacts over the last few years and I know I can grab a handful of clients pretty easily here. December will be a test run to see how that goes. I've been speaking to some experts who already outsource PPC to see which companies they use / what margins they add in for themselves.
  • Quality Leads Close to Closing - Right now seems like one of those times where sales are going to happen very soon, I'm in serious final discussions for 4-5 different prospects who are very interested in moving forward with SEO so just working on getting those wrapped up. Obviously you can never tell with timing, but I'd imagine at least 1-2 go through this month.
  • Next Business Venture - After the summit, a group of Fastlaners that I met decided to create a mastermind and it's been absolutely fantastic. Ever since February we've all had a Zoom call every other week and the progress we've all seen has been amazing. @GoodluckChuck helped me gain a little clarity around the next business venture I want to work on. Being critical of myself, I've been too involved with the current business and it's eating up too much of my time. Too much to the point where I haven't been able to actively spend time looking for needs/problems to fix. Due to this, when I set arbitrary deadlines of "new business idea to commit to by X date" then I feel disingenuous because I know I'm just forcing something that I think will make money and NOT something that solves an actual need. The solution is pretty simple to just go back to the fundamentals MJ talks about for looking for problems. I'm going to make sure that I'm setting aside time each day, and when I'm just going about daily life to be more cognizant of this. For everyone following, know the game plan is still the same - move myself away from the day-to-day of the current biz and use that to fund my expenses while I spend more of my time/effort on the business that can scale up much more easily.
2020 Revenue Tracker: $119,599.96 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $6,733 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal (Note: one client who paid monthly for a year for a website finally finished their payments for monthly rec. revenue dropped around $300 per month from that).
 
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GuitarManDan

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Invoice paid for the 7k deal! Feels amazingly relieving and I’m ready to deliver for this client.

Also have a really promising 4.5k deal call with the fashion designer on Monday so all of a sudden if I close that I’ll make more in one month I would’ve made in a month at the old investment bank job.

Definitely celebrating tonight... feels so great to see the business really scaling and growing.
 

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Hey All,

Just a quick update to update the numbers (first SEO client paid her $500 monthly bill). Still hustling to bring in more deals for the business. Have some really exciting ones at the moment that Fox has been helping out with.

Basically like 6 months ago I was doing Facebook outreach and one huge construction company must've saved my info... they messaged me saying their owner wants to move forward with updating the site and they are collecting quotes and proposals.

@Fox helped me put together a solid response (we ended up pitching them at a total cost of $25k-$40k after speaking) and provided a detailed plan to really stand out and this was their response below. I'm sure I'm definitely competing with huge companies with 20-100+ people so need to keep putting myself in the best possible spot to close this one!

Hi Dan,

Thanks for this information. I will review it with our IT person and get back with you on timing for a potential meet. I like that you have some ideas about the purpose of our website, which may be what gives you an edge when we’re reviewing interested parties.

Will be in touch


2019 Revenue Tracker: $27,630 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $5,000 Per Month / $10,000 Per Month Goal
 

GuitarManDan

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Not to be a downer or anything, but i feel that this entire thread is just a plot to sell Fox’s webschool and membership.

I'm not looking to have this thread get derailed for a super negative comment like this because that's not the purpose of me posting on here. It's to help myself out to jot down how everything is going and to track my progress, to learn from the amazing people on this forum, and to give some value back and hopefully provide insights for others looking to start up their own business or continue to grow it.

What I really don't understand is that looking at your account, funny enough we both joined around the same time (Feb 2017) but you haven't been too active except coming on here to post a negative comment on someone taking action to work on improving their life?

Take it from someone who used to be EXTREMELY negative all the time, it's no way to live. Why not try going through some of the amazing Gold threads from some of the amazing members of the forum and learn instead of just hating on threads?
 

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Hey Everyone,

Good news! Just closed a $6k website design deal (invoice just paid). One of my favorite clients has been an amazing referral source (same one who gave me the referral for the $16k site) and she told her friend who runs a successful event planning business about the results they've gotten from the site I created for them.

I had a call with the owner on Monday, came up with an idea for a pitch and then had another call yesterday to present that info. She was really happy that I viewed the site as more of a sales system and not just something that looks nice. She told me what made the difference was that I drilled down into the business/strategy side of things instead of just talking about features, platform to build it on, etc.

Updated numbers below adding in the $3k deposit:

2019 Revenue Tracker: $52,046 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $2,433 Per Month / $10,000 Per Month Goal
 

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Hey All,

This has been an unreal week, just closed another SEO client at $1.5k per month! He just went ahead and paid the invoice. When I first started my business, I spoke with a NYC financial services company and the call went terribly because I had no idea what I was doing (was trying to sell web design) but the owner was very friendly and a nice guy so we kept in touch.

Reached out a few weeks back and he seemed very interested in SEO. Now that things are really starting to ramp up, I'm going to work with a few others I know outsource some more time-consuming parts of SEO to start building a sustainable system for my business.

This is giving me a great opportunity to be able to focus mainly on sales and client relationships/management, but start acting more like a business owner instead of a consultant. It's terrifying to give up the control, but I know it's going to be a great learning lesson for future business ventures too. Updated numbers below.

*Side Note* - Not to be a bummer, but I want to be as transparent as possible in this thread and I found out I need to have surgery again (same one as last year but in a different spot this time) so that's unfortunate since the recovery was not fun last time. Should only be out of commission to get work done for a few days though so I'm not worried about business continuity. Went to the surgeon today about it, so it's been a strange up and down day.

2020 Revenue Tracker: $38,865.66 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $9,033 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal
 

GuitarManDan

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Part 2 / 2

In the beginning, things were going great and even after just a few months of starting the business, I had a month of doing $6k (while I was going through some fun health stuff that required me to spend several hours each week going to doctors, specialists, etc) and running my other full-time digital marketing business.

Probably 85% of the business that I did was with Google reviews and the rest was mostly Yelp (and some Facebook). What I noticed was that even in the few short months that I had been running this business, Google had COMPLETELY changed the way they facilitated the process of removing reviews, escalating them, etc. All of the usual contacts that I had made (with their fulfillment team in India) had moved onto different teams, all of the previous communication options (live chat, live calls, etc) were shut down and it was just a ticketing system with emails.

It then became this game of cat and mouse where Google would make huge changes, I'd have to figure out a new system and way that things were done, they would shadow ban one of my accounts, and I'd have to create a new one and keep going with this frustrating back and forth. They had no consistency in their decisions, and in fact if I referenced previous cases that I had worked on... this was a bad thing because they knew I was a company offering these services (which probably led to some shadow bans).

The revenue had peaks and valleys (basically good months when I figured out the system and didn't get banned and bad months when they changed it all up).

The main goal was to sell this business and create an actual scalable/sellable business asset, so I knew me doing all of the work manually wouldn't cut it, so I linked up with one of my automation expert friends who's on the forum and who I met at the summit a few years back. We created this fantastic system that would scrape negative reviews for law firms in the US and return a CSV with certain targeted keywords.

The challenge was that once again, those keywords became almost useless because Google would change up their policies, standards, and procedures so it was almost just unknown which reviews were coming down and which weren't.

A lot of my friends from the forum who knew what I was doing told me that it seemed like the business had stalled and that I should make a decision soon as it may not be worth it to continue working in this space when Google / Yelp made it where I legitimately no 0 control of this business. The time per hour was amazing and businesses were thrilled to work with me when it worked, but it just wasn't scalable after trying this for a year or so.

This previous month in January, I gave myself an ultimatum saying that I was going to go all out and make a final decision at the end of the month. In typical fashion of this business, I got a bunch of new clients, the system worked for a little bit (after they changed it again) and I was able to make a pretty fast $6k in January before Google just throttled my account (where the systems I used to report reviews, check on them, etc) was just broken and suspiciously wasn't working (once I reported a large amount of reviews).

Overall, the side business made about $40k (which was probably at 90-95% margins all in for any small costs) but even when I was dealing with a small amount of clients such as 5-10 at a time, Google was making it almost impossible to scale this up.

I definitely learned a lot from this experience, and I'm too stubborn to give up easily (with all of the challenges that came up over a year or so), but what really did it for me was trusted friends from the forum that I've made giving me a bit of a reality check that this wasn't going to be something that could scale the way it currently was, so it may be best to just let it go for now.

The main digital marketing business has been consistent and steady for this year and last year (doing around $10k per month) which has been great for cashflow, so the plan now that I have more capacity is to try to double that while also keeping an eye out for the next opportunity/business idea. I think the mistake I made and the biggest lesson learned is just how you can't overlook the control aspect of the CENTS framework.

I also now have a network of probably 20-30 different law firms around the US that I worked with for this business who I can see if they may be a good fit for web/SEO services as well to get into that niche to grow the digital marketing business.
 
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GuitarManDan

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Really exciting news today! There were some delays with the $4k site that I closed a few months back, but he just called me up that he's all ready to go.

Sent over the invoice and collected the 50% deposit this afternoon. I see this as a client that can bring me to the next level and my main focus these next few weeks is doing the best possible job for him!

The deal includes:
-Customized website
-Email marketing integration and setup
-Scheduling coordinator integration and setup
-Basic social media platform setup and some basic assistance to get him started

In other news, I've been focusing heavily on in-person networking and it's been going great so far. Last night I went to a happy hour for business owners and everyone seemed to enjoy my story of saying screw Wall Street and starting my own business.

Instead of miserably cold calling people, I was hanging out at a bar with a few drinks and had people coming up to me asking if I could help with their website. Next steps for this upcoming week:

-Set up the LLC and create the business bank acct
-Look into joining the Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce to have more opportunities for in-person networking
 

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Closed a $1,200 WordPress site sale today!

This afternoon I was doing some cold calls and following up with some older leads when this one guy I'd been going back and forth with (didn't seem interested at first glance) was open to hearing about how I could help and eventually convinced him to go ahead with updating his site for $1200 (deposit already paid this afternoon).

Huge relief because I know I can deliver on this project and I know I'll get him better results and it's great to make another decent-sized sale.

If there's anything I learned from this one, it's the benefit of persistence and not taking things personally. When I first quoted this business owner for 1200, he pretty aggressively told me he would never pay that much for a "website that looks somewhat nicer".

Instead of getting offended or hurt, I simply pushed back that I get build websites that get businesses results and went through different benefits and highlighted issues with his current setup.

Will keep everyone posted on how this project goes, but he seems very committed so far (already paid the deposit, sent over pictures, and provided some additional info I need to get started).
 
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Awesomely exciting! I remember the feeling, when you realize that holy-sh*t, next month can be much bigger because you aren't trapped into a traditional salary/hourly time arrangement. Gives me a zing remembering...

Completely agreed, it's such a cool feeling that I can just decide to increase my prices by over 5-7 times! (last site before the 7k website was sold for only 1k).

It's very entertaining the reactions I've gotten when I've told family/friends the great news from the past week. I know my family means well, but all of a sudden they aren't giving me advice like "well.... if it doesn't work out, you should keep your resume updated just in case" and friends are saying things like "I hate my job too, you're inspiring me to start a side hustle and make it work".

My personal favorite, which I know you talk about in your books, MJ... people have told me how "lucky" I'm getting!

Next steps now are to keep attending networking events and keep the deals in the pipeline in a good spot to close eventually, but most importantly - really overdeliver and do an excellent job for these two new clients I just picked up.

Will keep everyone posted how it goes.
 
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Hey Everyone,

Great news today! I've been working like crazy on my own website's SEO as not only is it good practice, but it also shows potential clients that I know what I'm doing if I rank for the really competitive SEO keywords...

Just checked my rankings and I'm in the top 5 for 4 different keywords that all get a lot of traffic!

One in particular "SEO (my city)" gets 720 searches per month so I'm really pumped to see what kind of organic leads come through.

Either way, I'm making the most of it and started taking a lot of screenshots and will use this as a selling point when pitching clients.

Really awesome to see some amazing results and I'm really pumped to see what the future brings.

In other news, I've been working on a new outreach system (basically making customized video audits and sending them via cold emails). So far I've gotten a response rate for 5% and have a meeting in person to present to the CEO of a financial services company here by me next week.

On top of that, just moving along other deals in the pipeline and working to get some feedback on a bunch of other pitches that I've made to see what comes through!

Will keep everyone posted, but really exciting stuff.
 

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Hey Everyone,

Just remembered that it's almost the 2 year anniversary of when I quit my investment banking job.

I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go, but I've learned so much and it's been such a rewarding experience so far running this business and just taking on all of these challenges.

The funniest thing I've experienced is close friends/family members/old colleagues are sort of rewriting history. In the beginning, the same people telling me "no one quits XYZ company" and "you're throwing your life away" and "you worked so hard to get all of those certifications and to get your degree"... now changed their tune to:

"I knew you would do well"
"It's nice that you got lucky", or
"It was an easy choice for you because you knew what business to do"

Not exactly like I'm breaking the bank, but they see the recent successes I've had and the good months (making more than I was making at the old job over the last 4 months or so) and they see the event instead of process of all of the doubt, stress, and failures that happened over the last few years.

I've feel like I've grown so much as a person with moving across the country and forcing myself to start all over and really challenge myself to build this business. I'm at the point now where I don't think I could ever work for someone else again and I'm really excited for the future.

It's really surprised me how much I've enjoyed this area of Scottsdale, it's a really inspiring atmosphere and it makes me want to do better every day. I had the chance to meet up with @MJ DeMarco @biophase and @AllenCrawley and a few other fastlaners a few weeks ago which was a great experience which would've obviously never happened if I was still miserable in my old location/job in NYC.

I'm also really excited to meet so many other fastlaners at the summit coming up in February.

I just want to keep learning and challenging myself and I know I can make an impact and find more success throughout whatever business ventures that I take on.
 

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Hey Everyone,

Stressful but good day here today. I've been speaking to a lead for the past few weeks from a Google Ads lead for SEO services. He runs a successful company out here in the Scottsdale area and we had a few really good calls.

I didn't want to post about it until it was official, but this past weekend he said he was ready to move forward with a $2k per month SEO deal. Out of the blue he asked for past examples of clients that I've helped and he called me up today to say that he was on the fence and just asked if I could put his mind at ease for certain questions.

After a 20-30 min phone call or so, he ended it by saying that he was ready to move forward and didn't need anymore references or case studies (as I offered to send over a lot more just to show him past results I'd gotten). The biggest challenge here is that this wasn't from a referral or an in person connection, and we weren't able to meet up with the coronavirus closures... so I'm very confident if I had met in person there wouldn't have been this much hesitation at the end.

I'm really excited to work this guy as he told me his background (he's been a lifelong entrepreneur and has sold a few different companies with successful exits and mentioned him and his wife were bored so they started this new company). Besides just from the SEO work, I feel like this is a great connection to have and someone I could learn a lot from.

He just went ahead and paid so updating the numbers below (also a $200 monthly client paid on top of this and a friend I actually met at the fastlane summit paid $400 for an SEO audit that was paid):

Updating the numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $37,365.66 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $7,533 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal
 
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GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

As I start to type this out, I'm trying to decide if it would make more sense to start a new progress thread specifically for the new business, as that's my main focus these days, but for now I'll just keep everything consolidated on this thread.

Highlighting the action that I've been taking and what it's meant so far will be a bit tougher since I'm going to keep this next business closer to the vest, but here's what I've done so far:

1. First Clients - Although I've been helping out a friend on the fastlane forum as my first client, closed my first outside client today! Got started right away on the work and honestly just very curious to see how the process plays out.

With this business, once I really get my process in place, I can just focus on building out the infrastructure and scaling (and of course the challenges that come with that) but it's really set up for success if I can get past the initial hurdles.

2. Running Into Challenges, As Expected - It's funny how we've reframed the way we look at common struggles... whereas in the past I'd be frustrated with challenges, now it's making me spin it in a positive way.... difficult to do means difficult to imitate/copy. Once I really crack the code with this business (some moderate success so far, but a long way to go), it means the average person who sees this business idea can't just throw up a landing page and copy it.

3. Constantly Looking for Opportunities - Ever since deciding on this business, it's unbelievable what's been happening. My last two client meetings for SEO/web design and at a recent doctor's appointment... all three randomly brought up the specific problem that my new business is solving.

At first I was thinking I needed this perfect pitch, and instead just leveraged what I've learned running the digital marketing business and was just super honest in my early days, and that's what got me my first legitimate outside client today. I didn't pretend to be the expert, I didn't pretend to be this huge firm... I just told them you mentioned this problem, let me see what I can do to help.

4. Documenting Everything - The wins, the challenges, and everything in between... I'm documenting it all so that once I start to figure things out, I can get some quick policies/procedures to train others in so that I can start scaling things.

5. Housekeeping Items - This is the easy part since I've already done all of this for my current business, but once I land another client or two, I'll get my contract lawyer to help me draft up a templated contract for clients brought on for this new business, I'll speak to my accountant and see if it would make sense to create a separate LLC and have separate business accounts or just to merge it with the current business.

Will keep everyone posted, but it's been exciting to not have to force this idea and to know there's a huge demand from business owners in this space who need my help!
 

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Welcome. How did you settle on Scottsdale? It's becoming somewhat of a commune there of Fast Lane Forum members.

Thanks, my main criteria was cheaper standard of living (not hard to do coming from NYC), warmer climate, and a decent population of people around my age (im a 27 year old guy).

I also was looking to check out a city in the western part of the US (lived in New Jersey and New York my entire life). I really liked San Diego but it was way too expensive when I’m just starting out my business.

I saw Scottsdale recommended on here multiple times and I had friends who used to live here who couldn’t recommend it enough so I figured why not.
 
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Welcome the neighborhood!! We have about another two months of great weather before your meddle will be tested.

BTW, can I put this outside or do you want it to remain private on the Inside?
 
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Watch out for scorpions! lol
Lived in Arizona for 18 years. Saw one scorpion in all that time. F*cker was 10 feet tall. Had to use the light saber and auto rifle at the same time to take it out. Or, flick it with my finger. :hilarious:
 
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Hey everyone, haven't posted on here in a while. Here's what I've been up to since I last posted:

-Successfully finished and uploaded my first paying client's website, he was very happy with it and it led to repeat business.
-Recently closed a small/easy $800 site with a previous client that owns another business.
-About to close and get paid for a $4000 site with someone I networked with back in New York that we agreed upon.
-Proposed a $6500 site for a really successful Scottsdale law firm. Still haven't heard back yet but going to follow up next week as the in-person meeting went really well.

In terms of taking action since I've been out here:

-Made over 200 cold calls reaching out to local businesses. This led to the potential 6500 site and a few other pending deals I'm working on. I think this may not be the best use of my time though, so I'm going to start focusing heavily on in-person networking events. A lot of business owners I cold called didn't need a site, but were happy to meet up and introduce me to other business owners in the area so I took advantage of that opportunity.
-Met up with some other Fastlaners in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area.
-Joined a few sports leagues and have met some friends and really cool people out here so far. Focusing on taking massive action and growing the business as the #1 priority, but coming from the insane hours and awful environment of investment banking, I'm trying to take it all in and enjoy my time out here.

Good news is it looks like April will be at least $4800 in revenue for my web design business! The main goal is to get to a point where I'm consistently covering my expenses and keep scaling this up.

Will keep everyone posted how it's going.
 
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Hey All,

In order to hold myself accountable, I want to put down in writing another goal that I was speaking with @Fox about last week as I'm putting all of my efforts into getting monthly recurring revenue SEO clients this year (and will also continue to bring on web design clients as one-off projects too, just will be putting most of my outreach efforts into SEO):

In addition to my goal of hitting $100k in 2019 of revenue, another goal I'm going to work to achieve and make it happen:

Hit $10k / month in recurring revenue by June 30th, 2019 with SEO clients

Here's where I currently stand with recurring rev clients with some quick updates on a few proposals that I sent out last week:

1. Financial Services Firm: Pitched them $5k/month for SEO, in-depth marketing and a bunch of other services. Sent a quick chaser email as I hadn't heard back (not surprising, they have been pretty slow to move throughout this process).

The CEO got back to me and said they are traveling across the country to work their team in California and haven't had a chance to review/discuss my proposal. They will review in mid Feb and get back to me from there.

2. Personal Training Gym:
Pitched them $1.5k/month for SEO. My tracking extension in my business Gmail tells me that they've viewed it, but I'll give it at least a full week before sending over a quick chaser email.

Their SEO is currently really rough so I know I could add huge value and help them out.

3. Other Pipeline: I realized that all of last year with all of the outreach I did for web design... this represents a huge opportunity to sell SEO services to those same businesses.

I've basically been building out a list on an Excel spreadsheet of businesses to reach out to (starting with the most likely candidates) and doing an SEO audit of all the companies to have concrete facts when I call them and bring this up. Basically reaching out to the following businesses (from easiest to toughest to sell):

A. Current web design clients
B. Personal businesses I've been a client of (dentists, doctors, etc)
C. Close networking business owners I know
D. Business owners that were friendly/responsive but didn't need web design services

Will keep everyone posted, but I have a really good feeling about this - now it's time to take massive action and make it happen.
 

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Hey All,

Kind of an unrelated post to the business, but I got some really good health news today. I know I've included some info about some unexpected surgery I had to get taken care of, but on top of that I had a completely unrelated other thing going on as well. It seems like both of those are past me now.

I don't want to get into too many details, but it was really stressful at age 28 to have multiple doctors tell me they had "no idea what was going on". In addition to that, it was tough to fit time in to grow the business going back and forth between doctors and specialists. Finally, my health insurance is pretty suspect this year (definitely going with a marketplace plan next year) so the insane bills added unnecessary stress as well.

Funny enough, I feel like I came out of this healthier though and it was a good learning lesson. Who knows what will happen in the future, but I'm excited to put my head down, focus on what I can control and crush it with my business for the remainder of this year.

Had a meeting yesterday from a referral and he's looking to take on a pretty huge task (customized ecommerce platform). The guy seems like he has the budget, he told me retired early and he's looking to put the funds into this project. Speaking with a bunch of people in @Fox 's groups (who specialize in this type of project) I'm going to pitch something along these lines (which is much more in line for my long-term goals with this biz):

1. Phase One - One month of overall strategy for the platform, how we'll market it, competition analysis, how we'll price different components, etc (thinking between $2 to $3k) for this first component.

2. Phase Two - Actual building of the platform. Someone on Rob's groups specializes in ecommerce and I'd be more than happy to pay him whatever he charges typically (and add in a premium for myself) because I know he does an excellent job. He told me this would be quoted around $25 to $40k for the owner.

3. Phase Three - Maintenance and digital marketing, this would be at least $500 to $1k per month for maintenance and then in addition, min of $1k per month for SEO and could be additional monthly income if he wants my help with PPC strategy, social media marketing/ads (could outsource those to contacts I know as well).

Even if this one falls through, great practice to get some experience pitching larger deals like this (this would be by far the largest one I've ever pitched.
 

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Happy New Year Everyone! Received my first payment of 2020 so time to start from scratch with the new numbers and new goals below:

Before getting into that, a few quick notes:

1. I'm really excited about the results I'm getting my biggest SEO client (paying $1500 per month) - just sent them out their monthly report and they've been really happy with the work I've been providing and they've been a pleasure to work with. THESE are the clients I need to get more of. They can easily afford this budget and they are super hands off - they just let me do my thing and ask questions here and there.

2. Starting right now, I'm going to re-listen to Unscripted to get the creative juices flowing for another business goal of mine to decide and commit to an idea for my next business venture by the end of June of this year. Still absolutely no idea what it will be, but I want to make sure I'm in the right headspace when I'm choosing.

2020 Revenue Tracker: $1,500 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $3,133 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal
 

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Hey Everyone,

Had a great first day at the Fastlane Summit, was great to put faces to names. It also was a big day for the business. My biggest sale so far went through while I was watching the presentations at the Summit.

The new client signed contracts and paid the invoices for the deposit on the website and for the 1st month of SEO ($3500 for the site deposit and $1500 for the SEO first month).

One big goal I have this year is to come up with the next idea that would be much more scalable and wouldn't be attached to my time and I've already thought up a few different ideas after listening to the amazing presentations today.

Updating the numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $11,466 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $4,633 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal
 
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Hey Everyone,

Had a networking contact come out of nowhere today and ask about SEO. His business has been growing pretty rapidly and he was fully onboard to kick things off so I closed another sale today!

It's for $1,000 per month for SEO services and to help him set up his CRM system (going to use Zoho probably).

I have a lot in the pipeline right now and I have a lot of capacity to bring on new SEO clients so I'm really excited to keep growing the business and keep helping out my clients. He told me the reason he wanted to work with me was all of the great reviews and testimonials I've received from other networking members so it's great to see that positive feedback!

Updating the numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $34,765.66 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $5,533 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal
 
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Hey Everyone,

With how busy things have been I'm going to make it a point to at least post an update around the end of each month with the new business.

Digital Marketing Business Updates: As a quick note, I'm still keeping the digital marketing business going. I'm in a fortunate spot where I still have a lot of great recurring clients who are a pleasure to work with, and that income stream is solid while I work on this next business. The way that I see it, the digital marketing business ceiling is only so high, and the plan all along has been to use the digital marketing business to learn how to run a business / improve my skills in these areas and then leverage that to move onto something that can scale much larger.

Since I've gotten my process down and still get a good amount of referrals and such, I know that even if a few recurring clients drop off I can hustle and get a few more on the SEO side of things to pay the bills / continue to save while I grow the new business.

New Business Updates: It's been a crazy busy month, but I've made a lot of progress (and still have a long way to go). Here are some updates with the new business venture and updated numbers for February revenue:

After closing a few more clients, I took the money that I've made in this business so far and started investing in getting the foundation set up, such as (total costs for starting this business has been under $1k which is great, I didn't have any interest for now in starting a new biz with huge costs upfront):
  • Started pitching more contacts from my network that I've built running my digital marketing business (converted 5 clients so far... lots of work still outstanding/pending as I'm figuring out my process)
  • Created the LLC
  • Hiring a contract lawyer to create a contract
  • Created the business bank account
  • Created a custom payment gateway on the site to accept online payments from clients
  • Grabbed a few testimonials and success stories that I put on the site
What was fantastic is I increased my prices, and one of my clients told me "you need to charge more for this" which is always great to hear. The demand is 100% out there for this, and this is something almost no one knows about. There's still A LOT of work to figure out on my side to get my process in place.

The more hurdles I run into, the more I keep thinking that this is going to act as a natural barrier to entry for anyone trying to copy the business / my process to it's not the worst thing, but there have been a lot of challenges that I've run into so far (which is to be expected).

As I keep refining my process, I know that once I figure out a few big challenges on my side, there's nothing stopping this from being huge. Of course challenges will come with scaling as well, but it's been really exciting to know the potential here.

New Business Goal: $250,000 in revenue in 2021

Feb Revenue: $750 (+200% from Jan)
Total Revenue: $1,000
 
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Hey Everyone,

Wanted to put together a quick overview for June, as it was a big month for this new business that I've been working on this year.

Ended up doing $6,500 during the month of June, and all of that was by myself (currently looking at my options for the best ways to scale this up).

If anything, it showed me the legitimacy of this business and the huge scaling potential that there is here. The profit margins are really high as well so that means I can get creative with lead generation (hiring VAs, giving commissions, paid advertising, etc).

It's a bit challenging to give more info without describing what business this is and what I'm doing, but until this is more established I'm going to keep that undisclosed for now. Updating the numbers below:

New Business Goal: $250,000 in revenue in 2021

May Revenue: $500
June Revenue: $6,500 (+1200% from May)
Total Revenue: $9,500
 

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Hey Everyone,

I wanted to share a quick update to recap September and to just go over what's been going on with me lately. The personal issues that I mentioned I've been dealing with (don't want to get too into them) but they've been impacting me the past 5-6 months and I am extremely grateful that it finally is starting to get better.

It's made working on growing this new business really difficult but I'm glad to say that things are starting to trend in the right direction for the first time with the personal issues and I can see it not being an issue sometime very soon in the near future.

I'm extremely fortunate to be in a place where my main business (the digital marketing firm) has been able to consistently do $10-12k per month throughout this year. Thanks to the lessons that I learned from this community I focused on growing it as a business and not just a job / acting like a freelancer, so all of the tedious parts of the work are outsourced and I have just been handling the high-level items.

This has allowed me to put almost all of my time into addressing the challenges I've been dealing with on a personal level.

With things improving, there are a lot of things I'll never take for granted again after this whole experience, but I don't want to focus on that too much and want to share some quick updates on the new business:

  • Hired a friend to help with sales to start outsourcing the outreach part of this business. He's a really smart guy who I trust and he's picking things up really fast. Training him up on the process helped me document procedures / create videos that I've saved and can flip around to anyone else I bring onto the team now
  • September was one of the slower months with this business, 100% my fault - my capacity to work on this business was severely limited due to the personal reasons so I'm excited to jump back into it and focusing on taking things to the next level
  • Updating the goal below as that's what I'm mainly focusing on now with a mastermind group that I'm in with some members on here... given my baseline of around $10k for the digital marketing business, that means I would need to do around $20k with this new business in one month. That helps me break down how many clients I need to work with, what my conversion rate is (to know how many to reach out to), etc.
  • Running into some more bottlenecks - this business passes the CENTS framework with flying colors all except the C (control portion) of it. The barriers to entry are decently high since this is such a newer and unknown industry, the need is overwhelming, the amount I'm getting paid (for the small amount of time) is fantastic, and the scaling potential is huge... the big challenge is that I need to rely on other companies and as they change some things on their side, I have to find workarounds for that. My main focus for this month is going to be to focus on eliminating and reducing some of those bottlenecks to the best of my ability

New Business Goal: Have one $30k month before March of 2022

Aug Revenue: $4,000
Sep Revenue: $2,150
Total Revenue: $18,650
 

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