Moved to Scottsdale, Growing a Web Design Firm

[GuitarManDan]

It's been too long since I've updated everyone so here's what's been going on since I last posted:

• Comedian's Website: The comedian's website is completely finished. I really made a huge emphasis not only on over delivering but also giving the client a great customer experience from start to finish. Everyone in Fox's web design Facebook group helped me out a lot to provide a great website and copywriting for him. The client was really happy and now I'm going to see if he could give my business a shoutout on Twitter (he has around 55k followers so I figure that should lead to some referrals).
• Retirement Planner Website: The retirement client has been dragging his feet a little bit as he's been crazy busy. He's still very happy with how everything is coming out and keeps thanking me, but the website has been 99% completed for about 3 weeks now and this one is dragging on longer than I would prefer. Definitely one of the challenges of this that I wasn't familiar with.
• Overall Pipeline: One big challenge I've had is that for the past 4-6 weeks I've just put my head down and focused almost all my effort on over delivering for my two big clients (previously mentioned) and now I'm having issues getting new deals in the pipeline. I know these two big projects will lead to solid referrals, but who knows when they will come in. This is what I've been doing to work on getting more deals in the pipeline:

1. Networking - I've been attending a lot of events and trying to gain a local presence here in Scottsdale. I'm planning on joining the Chamber of Commerce and one other group that meets every Monday. I'm the only web designer in the Monday group so I'm excited about that.

2. Cold emailing/calling - I'm trying to not fill my days cold emailing/calling because I'm not sure how effective that will be as a use of my time now that I have some solid projects under my belt.

3. Following up with previous leads that never went through (for various reasons) - a lot of business owners drag their feet with this because they don't see it as being too important to them and I'm sure other projects come up

It's a challenge and definitely a little stressful as I haven't brought in new business in around a month and half due to how much I've been working on the other two sites. But the great news is my clients I've worked with are happy and I'm sure it will start leading to referrals.

For now though, the heavy emphasis is marketing and getting more deals in the pipeline ASAP.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Here's a quick update of what's going on so far in 2019:

Being Persistent with a Potential Huge Deal:

Last summer at a networking event I had a conversation with a manager of a commercial real estate firm (10-20 employees) that's looking to completely redo their site.

This would be a HUGE budget (quoted them at $12k - 18k) and they told me the owner is looking to spend around $15k.

Definitely have learned to expect curveballs owning a business... I had fantastic rapport with the employee responsible for managing this project and she told me she told the owner I was a great fit but they were collecting quotes.

So I went to email her and it turns out she's no longer with the company. After a few other attempts to find a new contact there didn't work out, I just called up the general number today and explained the situation.

Luckily enough, I was speaking to her replacement (new marketing coordinator). She asked me to resend the proposal email to her and that they didn't pick someone to redo the site yet (I was worried I might've missed the boat) and that she'll let me know what the founders say.

I'm going to follow up if I don't hear back by next week to push hard for an in-person meeting.

All of the Corporate America nonsense has made me really really good at in-person meetings at building rapport and I want to get to that next level where they can put a face to a name.

I want to be aggressive to start this year and lock down a huge contract like this to really get some more solid momentum.

Will let everyone know how it goes when I have updates!

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

In the spirit of being as transparent as possible, this week was definitely a mixed bag. Here's a list of what went well and what challenges presented themselves with the business / leads:

Challenges That Came Up:

• A really solid promising lead ($1k per month for SEO) lawyer told me he was ready to move forward last week after doing outreach to show him issues with his site. I called him up and finally got in touch and he gave me the dreaded "I have your email, I'll reach out to you" when he was back in the office after taking a trip abroad this weekend. I'm going to handle this one by giving it some time (probably later next week) I'll send a super high value email that shows him a competitor analysis of why his competitor's sites are outranking his and what it means for his bottom line.
• Another solid lead ($2.2k per month for SEO) former web design fashion design client had a call with me today. It was the fashion designer's manager and their consultant who does social media / PPC for them... and it seemed like the social media contact wanted to really seem like the expert and just grilled me on what exactly I'd be doing for SEO and asked why the price was so steep. Not going to lie, I basically got beaten up on the call.. it's tough when I am still really learning how to deliver for SEO so I can't speak about it as intelligently or as confidently as I'd like. They basically framed it like I didn't have to do any link building at all because "they could do it themselves" and they want me to repitch it with a big "initial setup" and then a smaller monthly amount for basically just doing metrics and such and other keyword research. I'm working with @Fox and a few others for how to really reframe this and have a winning strategy in place to see how I should frame it and what I should charge.

What Went Well:

• Met with my biggest SEO client ($1500/month) in person. Their office is within walking distance and they asked if I could come in sometime this week to explain a question they had. I wanted to provide amazing customer service and not blow them off now that they were a client so I came in that afternoon. They were really thankful for that and they told me they were getting some leads coming in from the SEO campaign so they were really happy with how it was going. Great to really deliver and know they are happy.
• My other SEO client ($500/month) got some great high quality backlinks and she's really happy to see her business mentioned and published in these really relevant online blogs.
• One of my former web design clients basically agreed to move forward with some additional work (setting up email drip campaigns, some site edits, etc) for $1150 per month (things should kick off around May 29th). Not official yet, but seems pretty solid.
• Although it didn't lead to any solid leads yet, I really put my head down and got stuff down with outreach and follow ups (emails, calls, etc).

Anyway, I'm so mentally drained, I was so optimistic this was going to be a huge week and I really thought I'd make the leap from $2k per month to around $5.2k per month, so definitely challenging but just going to keep pushing forward and accept weeks like this are just a part of the grind.

Going to log off for the weekend, having a party tonight at my place with some friends so that'll be nice to unwind. Back to the grind tomorrow but for now going to give myself the rest of the night off.

Looking like barring an unexpected sale, May will be around $3.2k in revenue brought into the business.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Quick update, have a great feeling June is going to be a solid month! A few updates from my side (in addition to the usual 2k per month recurring rev):

1. The recent client I mentioned gave me the go ahead to get started on the web design edits (charging $90 per hour) for around 20 different items. Realistically this will end up being $800 to $2k in revenue for the business depending on how long it takes.

2. Almost finished with the travel agency website... the client loves it so far and we're just doing the last tweaks (setting up the payment processing for clients to book trips online). Once that goes live, I'll collect the other 50% ($1.85k)

3. Have a call with my old financial services web design client this Friday.. guy is good for his worth, doing some touch up work on the site and some email automation for $1,150 per month (month to month basis), but he has had history for pushing things off so it's possible this one goes through this week too if he's ready.

4. Sent out a chaser email to the potential $5k per month financial marketing client. They basically said a few months ago that they were still interested but to follow up in a few months when the timing would be better.

5. Gave my contact a follow up call for the $4.5k per month fashion designer client (former web design client) and should hear back sometime this week or early next week to see what the update is with that. She mentioned she was going to run this budget by the decision maker and let me know.

Those are the most notable ones, but big things happening! Need to keep pushing and making it work.

Another huge milestone for me (as someone who always likes to control everything), I outsourced some of my link building for my SEO monthly clients and am excited to see how those come back. Starting to build up the process to scale things up!

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Dan, can I ask what exactly is involved in a $16k site?

I'm taking a Idemy course right now that basically just front end, was wondering if you focus on the front end too or are you a coder making elaborate sites?

I'm from the UK but Scottsdale sounds amazing! Wish I could move there.

Hey Benji,

This project involves a very complex ecommerce system and different components that are beyond my expertise. I could've learned them and found a way to make it work, but at this point it was much easier to hire someone else and I paid him a percentage of the budget for this deal.

This has allowed me to step into more of a role of outsourcing advanced work and it's been an amazing experience so far. I hired someone I know from one of Fox's groups who runs his own 6 figure business and he's been an absolute pleasure to work with.

If I put my head down and was just focused on going crazy and learning this advanced skill, I would've missed out on a lot of sales that I've made recently.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to say thanks to MJ and Allen and everyone who worked to put together the Fastlane Summit, it was fantastic meeting everyone that I spoke to this weekend.

From the presentations and the networking between/after the main event, I learned so much and am already thinking of ways to implement those right away.

I'm not going to get into specifics for now, but I'm going to take part of this afternoon and this week to start looking for leads online and make a list to reach out. Basically going to implement strategies I've already been using / skills I already have to start targeting much larger deals and going to target a very specific type of client.

Worst thing that happens is the companies say no or they don't respond at all, but the upside is huge and one deal could easily make my whole year.

Probably the biggest takeaway that I got from the Summit is seeing the same patterns of characteristics/approaches that all of the fastlaners who found success have. It showed me my own blind spots and it will help me double down on things that I've been doing right so far.

I'm going to hit the ground running and work to avoid the common pitfall of going to a conference, feeling great, and then taking no actions.

Will keep everyone posted on how that's going plus the current client work / business!

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

One thing I really strive for with my progress thread here is to be as transparent and open as possible - for the wins and the challenges that happen, and the past week has been a big challenge and very stressful on my side. I wanted to go through the situation and share what I've learned so far.

For those who have been following, you'll remember the $16k project that I closed late last year. Since it was a bit more complex than I personally could do, I outsourced to a trusted web designer who runs his own 6 figure business specializing in e-commerce sites.

He's been an absolute pleasure to work with and has gone above and beyond, but the client is another story. To be honest, all of the warning signs were there - huge red flags everywhere (even though this client was a referral). There was a lot of back and forth, and I basically only agreed to work with this guy because we had a very specific contract (that gave me A LOT of protections/safeguards) and because he had a relatively big budget so it was a good opportunity to learn how to act as a project manager.

3 months or so into the project, the client was very happy, and was even complimenting us which was surprising because he's a pretty tough guy to deal with. We were ready to go live, we deleted the test data and all of a sudden he froze up and started making up super complex edits that we never agreed to and complaining about the most random small details.

We went above and beyond to help out, and for the very complex items that we didn't agree to, we worked with him for workarounds, but the edits didn't stop. He'd agree to "final edits" and then come back with 50 more new ones.

It got to a point where we needed to put our foot down, as he was talking down to us and not being a team player at all - it was his way or nothing. He said let's just do one more final round of edits and we agreed and that's when things really took a turn. The final edits were done so I sent an email saying let's collect the final payments now and we're all set and that if he needed anymore complex edits (since the requests didn't stop) we would need to charge extra budget.

He sent back a nasty email and then followed it up with an email to me saying I needed to:

-Fire the developer
-Get a new developer
-Start over again

And then ended it with a lovely threat saying "the future of my business depends on it".

That's the point when I contacted my contract lawyer and paid for an hour consultation to go through everything. Fortunately, she said the contract I had in place is solid and that even if he tries to sue or if we have to bring him to collections, the contract states the client has to pay all legal fees (for both sides).

I basically worked with my attorney to draft an email back to his ridiculous demands saying that we had completed our part of the contract, went through line by line for the agreed-upon scope/functionality of the contract to show we've done our part, and then said he had 48 hours to review and pay or we would have to pull the site, which the contract allows us to do. It's been 72 hours or so and we took the site down, he has read the email but hasn't responded yet (most likely speaking to his lawyers).

Just for context, I've been working with @Fox and others who are much better at handling difficult client situations like this, and even most of them have agreed this guy is just a huge red flag and that I need to make sure I'm protected legally, so that's what I'm doing.

Anyway, this seems like one of those things that are going to get worse before they get better. He still owes us $6.4k and I still have about $2.5k left I need to pay my developer. The goal here is to just get him to pay without going to any type of trial and then ending the relationship with this client.

It's just been stressful as in 2+ years of running this business, I've never had any clients get anywhere near this level of escalation. Additionally, my contractor has been in business 10+ years and never has either.

The biggest things I've learned from this:

1. The importance of having good contracts in place that protect you from situations like this. I paid a good contract lawyer to help modify my web design and seo contracts. I knew the chance I'd actually need to enforce them is very low, but still huge in situations like these.

2. Trust your gut, I knew right away this guy was a huge red flag. Always a good lesson to reinforce to avoid these types of clients.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Logged in to make a quick update to the numbers as one of my $1500 per month SEO clients is automatically billed on the 1st of the month and saw that today is my 3 year anniversary since joining the forum!

I also know it's been 2 years almost to the day that I drove cross country from NJ to AZ and it's just been an amazingly rewarding experience so far. Can't thank everyone on this forum enough. It helped me turn my frustrations of being stuck in a job that I hated into real action to improve my situation and my life.

I still have a long way to go, but to be able to make a full-time income on my own schedule and to improve everyday with my sales / business skills has been incredible. I have a great feeling March is going to be a huge month and I'm going to take the steps necessary to make it that way.

Updated numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $13,466 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Hope that you're all staying safe out there with all of the craziness happening right now with covid 19. Wanted to share a few updates since I last posted and update the numbers below:

• A recurring $200 per month client paid for SEO reporting
• A friend paid me $200 for a small project that I helped out with
• Got a new inbound lead that found me from my organic SEO ranking (my site has ranked #1 for a popular SEO keyword in my city and surprisingly hasn't led to too many results but is good social proof to validate my work). They said all of the right things I want to hear - they want web design, SEO help, a long-term business relationship and someone who knows the finance industry well so I responded back to to schedule a call
• For the large finance client I closed in Feb, finished up their website and it's pending with the owners to review the final draft now. Aiming to go live in the next few weeks (preferably sooner but if it isn't in March, it'll close out in April).
• Have all of the on-page SEO work done for the newest plumbing company so just working on link building now to increase those rankings. They told me that they want to try this out for 3 months so definitely feel the pressure, in a good way, to start delivering for them.
• About to start a lot of outreach this week since I am starting to get some capacity back now that I've finished up a bunch of projects
• A deal I literally closed over a year and a half ago may actually finally finish up - this was before I had contracts and the owner has been delaying it every time I speak with him. He emailed me saying his travel plans have all cancelled due to the coronavirus so he will have time to finally work on the site with me in April (remaining $3,500 on that deal for the last 50%).

2020 Revenue Tracker: $21,199.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Been offline for a while resting up after the surgery... seemed to have gone well just hoping to rest up from it and have no complications in the future. Got a few leads from referrals that I need to follow up with and also need to reach out to other leads that I had in my pipeline for potential SEO clients to ramp up outreach/bringing on new clients again.

I received some monthly recurring payments too so wanted to update the numbers below (monthly clients that are signed up to pay for $1500, 1500, 333.33, and 1000).

2020 Revenue Tracker: $43,198.99 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Any updates? What you up to now @GuitarManDan ?

Hey MJ - thanks for the push, I'll include a breakdown below of what's been up on my side since my last post.

After posting that the plan was to wind down the review business (and take on occasional clients with it or use it as an upsell to my main business) I had a networking connection introduce me to a huge company that wanted my review removal services (don't want to provide the specific name, but they apparently had a SuperBowl commercial this year which is crazy).

In addition to that, the same week I had an old review client who was very happy refer me to his brother's business. So without any real effort put into client outreach, I had a $6k month a few months ago which inspired me to pick things back up with that.

The main business still has the monthly recurring revenue from my SEO clients (most of them have been with me for 2 years and have been fantastic to work with and it's safer stable income), but my main focus has been more on the review side.

After my friend got me this huge client, she asked if I could offer a commission for future referrals so we agreed that any introduction she makes that turns into a client, I provide 10% for any review that comes down for that client.

Since that's been working well, I offered that same deal to some other trusted business owners I know who I know are well connected and network a lot. I've also been working on something on the IT side of things to identify review clients much easier (still in the works, but making big progress on that).

It really opened my eyes to how this could scale when I did $8.2k in just one week last month in June (just from a handful of clients) and how my larger clients are constantly getting reviews so it almost becomes a recurring revenue source for the larger ones.

I want to be able to post a larger update when I really have everything aligned so apologies for disappearing on here, but there's just so many unknowns right now for how this could go so trying to make it all happen.

On one hand, Google could smack me down and turn this virtually into nothing at any point, but when things line up, the amount I've been making for the relatively small amount of time (and how happy the clients are) has inspired me to really push myself on this and see what happens.

Happy to answer any questions!

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Wanted to share a quick update for the month of September. I was really happy with the progress that I had made with August being my best month ever and I was a bit overwhelmed at first looking at Sept. I wanted to make sure that I kept my focus high-level and didn't fall into any kind of mental traps of taking it easy and after one amazing month, falling back to the old income levels.

Although it was by a slight margin, I can say that September passed August as my best month ever.

August was about $30.5k and September so far has been about $32k between both businesses. In case anyone is curious about the breakdown, the rep mgmt business did about $24k and the web/seo business did $8k this month so far.

I'm happy with the progress that I've made, but I know I can do much more so I'm trying to do everything I can to execute on this more efficiently and scale this up as there's a lot more room for growth here.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Another deal closed! This has been a great week for the business.

$1,000 one page simple HTML site for a networking business owner I met at a few events.

I just happened to look at his site and saw how bad it was and sent him an email suggesting a few things he could do to improve it and he wanted to have a call to discuss.

Call went really well, I originally quoted him at $1250 and he said he could do it at $1000 which I'm fine with because this guy knows a lot of local business owners and this is my first client in Arizona since I've been here (all other clients are back home in NJ/NY).

I know I'm going to overdeliver for this client and I'm really excited to work on this one.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Wanted to share another quick update. Still has been over a month since I made a sale but my strategy to start charging a fair amount and not underselling myself has put me in a great position. All of a sudden, I'm in very serious discussions and consideration for 4 deals (all over $4,000). Some more likely to close than others, but I have a really good feeling the next few weeks / September is going to be a huge month for my business.

I've also been working to track the results past sites have gotten and came to a pretty cool conclusion - every single website project I did in the past, all sites are on the 1st page of google for targeted keywords (usually "niche + city").

Here are the current deals that I'm in discussions with and a little blurb about where they stand:

1. Commercial Real Estate Firm: Yesterday at a networking event, this lady happened to speak to me when she heard I did web design and we scheduled a call today. Call went really well and she asked for a more detailed quote. It's a decently large company 10+ people and they are involved with a lot of deals in the 8 figure range so they are doing well financially.

Quoted them at $12k - $18k (with tiered pricing) with help from Fox to figure out how to structure that and propose my services in a way to differentiate myself from the competition. Curious to see what they come back with.

2. Famous Fashion Designer: This was my first referral from the Comedy Central Comedian's site that I did. Some really famous fashion designer liked my work with him and this guy is looking for a relatively simple site that I know I can deliver on. Had a great call with his assistant and sent over a quote.

Quoted them $4,500 and she said she will run it by the fashion designer himself this week so I should hear back later this week / next week.

3. CPA Firm: After lots of back and forth, finally got the owner to see the value of this one (website redesign and a decent amount of SEO work to get his site to rank higher).

Quoted him around $4,000 for this one - he's figuring out some other details at the moment but finally didn't object to the price when I worked with him (originally quoted at $5,000). Will follow up next week if I don't hear back from him (he specifically told me he'd get back to me shortly).

4. Investment Management Firm: This was a referral from someone I met a networking event that I recently spoke about.

Quoted him at $7,000 and he said that sounds reasonable to him. We agreed to grab coffee late in August and have plans on Friday to meet to further discuss the project. Curious to see how the conversation goes but I've had a great track record of sales meetings going well in person.

Will keep everyone posted when I know more about these!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I've also been working to track the results past sites have gotten and came to a pretty cool conclusion - every single website project I did in the past, all sites are on the 1st page of google for targeted keywords (usually "niche + city").

OMG, flashback! This was a technique I used to secure new business... "Hey, look what I did for XYZ, they're on the front page of Google!" (Well back then it was GOTO). It puts you in a great position to advertise an "improvement" to their search rankings. (Not necessarily a first page)

Ended up closing a deal for $6,950 to completely redo the website and help setup/provide training for email marketing!

Yes! Congrats, very existing. Your thread is very nostalgic to me, reminds me of my beginnings.

Thread upgraded to NOTABLE.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

It's been a while so I wanted to post and just provide some quick updates on what I've been up to.

1. I've been busy just focusing on really delivering for the two big contracts that I locked up in September. Both have been going really well so far - the fashion designer site is almost completely finished and the investment mgmt site I completed the first draft but the business owner needs a few weeks to review with the partners of his firm to share feedback (he also just bought a house so he's a busy man right now).

2. Continuing to go to networking events, and most importantly continuing to read and learn so that I can keep improving my abilities to market, sell, really deliver for clients, etc.

3. I created a YouTube channel as a way to try to build that out to get some inbound leads (on top of referrals). I just posted my first video today. I'm definitely a rookie but I'm going to keep thinking of content that will help business owners who want to audit their own website and maybe make some improvements.

4. Trying to really balance overdelivering for client projects and also making sure I'm doing prospecting so that I don't run into another slow period like I did in August of this year.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

CPA firm owner I’ve been speaking to on and off again for several months finally got back to me that he’s all set with the 4K budget we discussed.

Had a little hesitation at first and he wanted to go lower with the price but I was able to reply effectively thanks to help from @Fox - just sent out the invoice this afternoon.

Not official yet until he pays the deposit but if this one goes through that’ll put me at a total of around $26k total revenue for my first year in business.

Will be good momentum to bring me into 2019 - expecting big things from myself and the business this upcoming year.

 

[GuitarManDan]

First of All, Congratulations for your success buddy.
You are very much live example of how to build a business from scratch. Glad to read about your hustle.

As i read, you could be getting many SEO related work which will be monthly basis. so, have you hired/made a team to handle this or you will be doing it yourself?

What will you advice a fellow like me who is hustling in the same business, working 9-5 along with that. I have some success, many failures as of now in my 4 months efforts. The difficulty i am facing is being Consistent. Being there. Daily.

Family, Job, comes in between way too much and i get distracted. Though, making all the efforts to sail through all this. I am just going slowly and steady pace.

If you shed some light on my progress thread and skim through it and give some feedback and suggestions to do it better, i will appreciate. I will ask to skim through only last two months progress because early posts are just fillers.

Thanks for reading. I will be following you progress!

Hey man,

Thanks for the kind words - and yep, still just prospects but I'm so close to a huge breakthrough with the monthly contracts.

I will be handling everything myself for SEO. Similar to way I did it with web design, I want to become an expert first with SEO before I really outsource (as then I would know what to look for with good vs. bad SEO contractors).

Of course if this blows up more than I can handle as just myself I would definitely outsource parts that were simpler, but I want to keep it all in house for now as I really learn and grow.

I'll take a look at your progress thread but I really wouldn't want to give generic advice (ex. definitely quit your job or definitely go into XYZ business) as everyone's situation is unique.

It was EXTREMELY difficult for me to quit my job and move out when I had such a "good" setup from outside perspectives. It's amazing how comfortable we all get in bad situations just because they're familiar.

Looking back, it seems like a miracle that I made it out of that toxic environment. "I can't move away from my family"... "what will people think"... "what if I fail?"... "what if I regret this for the rest of my life?"... "it's really not that bad".

After months and months of convincing myself it was the right thing to do, I was surprised how dramatic people were (I always thought maybe it was just all in my head). I know I've said it before, but I always crack up looking back now at all of the people saying I was "throwing my life away". And look, I'm not at the point where I can sit around on the beach all day but I have my freedom and I know I'm going to make this work and make way more than I ever did at my old jobs.

Even after some moderate success, those same people have been saying "I didn't think you'd get this lucky" or "how can I do what you're doing?"

Point of my rambling is that whatever choice you make isn't going to be easy, I didn't have a family depending on me and it was still extremely difficult for me, so you have to figure out what you really want and make the best decision for your situation.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

I want to be as transparent as possible and not just make this a highlight reel. I'm sure this is a common mistake people make when they make a progress thread - from the outside looking in, it seems like it's nothing but success after success.

I know I personally learn the most from the challenges and others would gain some great insights too. That being said, a few quick updates from my end for a few deals that I figured would be sure things but ended up running into challenges:

1. Referral for the Catering Company Got Back to Me:

"Your price structure is better suited for businesses much larger than mine. I'll have to struggle on my own for now."

This one honestly confused me, I gave her a tier of pricing from $500 per month to around $2,000 (she said her budget was around $500 per month). Additionally, she emailed me after our call saying how I really "got it" and we were on the same page.

My reply (still haven't gotten a response yet):

"Completely understand, it was great speaking with you and learning more about your business.

Just to quickly address your last point, typically I work with small businesses that are owned by business owners who view the SEO services as more of a long-term investment, as SEO is typically a long-term play. Whatever they end up paying and whichever plan they select, they understand that the main goal of the whole project is to get them a great return on investment or else I'm not doing my job.

I think you have a really good vision for your business and you struck me as someone who would rather get it done correctly the first time instead of having to deal with some of the more inexpensive options, that's why I felt it would be a good fit!

You did mention that you were looking to spend in the area of $500 per month so I figured the silver or basic SEO plans would get excellent results and would be around that budget range.

Either way, just wanted to clarify the rationale behind the pitch that I sent over and if you had any questions at all please let me know. Otherwise, it was great speaking with you and best of luck!"

2. Referral from Previous Client (Entertainment Company) Got Back to Me:

Good news and bad news (kinda):

-Good is he wanted me to help with some quick fixes on his website. I have been billing at $90 per hour for these so still a decent payout. He said he should have more work too, but after doing the first wave of edits (will be around $400 bucks.. will update when he pays and I send out the invoice), I found A LOT of issues in the back end. Whoever made this site didn't know what they were doing and it's causing a crazy amount of issues.

I suggested the best thing would be to scrap it and start from scratch, as I told him I didn't want to see him invest a lot of his money into a site that wouldn't get him the results as his business grew.

-Bad (for now) is he said he'd prefer to put the monthly SEO work aside and not kick that off until a later point.. so still a good chance it goes through but I figured this one had an excellent chance of going through.

Current Client Work:

As I'm really getting my feet wet with delivering for clients in the SEO world, it's definitely been a bit overwhelming, but thinking back when I started web design the exact same thing happened... as it's a new skill to learn and even simple things take longer than expected, it can get overwhelming at times.

I kinda like that as I keep closing more deals this is going to force my hand to start outsourcing and really get my system down so that I can scale this thing up.

One of the biggest personal characteristics I've had to constantly fight against with running my own business is that I'm definitely a perfectionist, so the idea of outsourcing terrifies me in a way, but I know in order to really make this work and start bringing in the level of income that I'm aiming for I'll need to outsource different aspects.

I know playing more of a project manager role and focusing on the sales side will really help me get amazing experience that will help me down the road. Will keep everyone posted!

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

A few quick updates on my end:

1. New Outreach Going Well - More Prospects: Now that I'm back on my feet, started doing outreach again. Got a call today from a law firm very interested in my help with SEO.

Obviously not official yet, but got a verbal commitment that he wanted to go with my $1,000 a month package for at least 3-4 months. Seems like a good business owner to work with after our first call.

2. Turning Down a Headache Potential Client: Had to turn my first ever potential client - had a bad feeling all along... they worked with an SEO firm that absolutely screwed them over (and they paid a lot on a 12 month contract). They were extremely rude and short with me and said some crazy things... my personal favorite "if you screw us over, we'll destroy your business and reputation".

Funny thing is I know I can deliver for this one, but $1,000 to $1,500 a month is NOT worth it if they are the trouble client that takes up 70-80% of my time and causes 95% of the stress.

I ran it by Fox's inside group and without a doubt, every single person agreed I needed to run as fast as I could haha so I'm going to send them an email today basically in a professional way saying I don't think it would be a good fit to work together.

3. Great Results for My First SEO Clients! This one is really huge for me, as the first few clients are always stressful. My first big SEO client ($1,500 a month) I just sent over their monthly report and every single keyword ranking went up (tracking 10)... one even is ranked on the top page! The client is happy and I'm excited to really be delivering and getting some great results.

Will keep everyone posted, need to start acting really smart and need to take massive action to meet the goal I set out of getting to $10k a month by June 30th... with where I am now, that means I'll need to bring in $4k/month worth of clients in May and June.

 

[Fox]

How did you arrive at this conclusion?

As good as it is for learning business skills and quick cash it is quite limiting once you get to 10-20k a month. You can either build out a full team OR use the skills and resources you know have to start your own thing.

Also after helping a few dozen or more business make massive sales through the websites you built them you naturally start thinking - why don’t I just do this for myself?

The easiest way to start with this if you had no ideas would be to partner with a client and take a % of the sales you create for them.

Either way you need to transition from a time service based business to a scalable business.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Just updating the numbers as the $300 per month PPC previous client just paid:

Updated numbers below to account for this:

2019 Revenue Tracker: $32,255 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $5,300 Per Month / $10,000 Per Month Goal

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Another good day - agreed to terms for a $5500 website + strategy deal (not official yet until he signs the contract and pays the invoice so I'll update the numbers then)!

A lead basically fell into my lap from a networking event I've been doing and he reached out to me. He is launching a new business and he really liked my site. What I was proud of myself for doing is that he was initially just viewing what I was offering as a commodity (web design) and then I started talking about the business strategy to identify how he was going to monetize this.

He stopped at one point and said "wait, you can help with this too? I thought I was going to have to hire someone else for that"... all of a sudden, my value just shot up in his eyes.

Met up with him again today and he agreed to the one off price of $5500 and a monthly maintenance after that for probably $300-500 per month (still TBD). Even though I was a little nervous, it was great to pitch the price/quote in person again and get better at handling objections on the spot.

Will keep everyone posted but that would make around $10.5k locked down in new deals in just the last week!

 

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[Isaac Oh]

Hey Isaac - Yes sir!

Wow!! I never made the connection...

Dude! Your thread has been a huge source of inspiration for me. And the whole time I had no idea!

It's taken me out of slumps countless times and I even had it bookmarked so that I would read chunks of it daily. It's what pushed me from toying with the idea to really diving in and taking action.

I'd take notes on different approaches you tried and tried it for myself. It's what motivated me to face my fears and get one of my first clients. I'd use the numbers you made to help me believe it was possible. I even read fanatical prospecting at the airport and read it in one flight because of you haha!

Thank you man. I thought you'd like to know how much your posts mean to someone like me.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Quick update for the numbers - had a $100 per month and $200 per month client pay in the last few days:

On a side note, my first SEO client kept me on for web maintenance and she got so busy that she had to stop the SEO campaign because she couldn't keep up with all of the leads.

I've been tracking the rankings for the keywords we've been targeting and it's really cool to see they've still been rising based on the on-page and off-page work that I helped out with. It's allowed my client to have all the leads she needs just from SEO and to almost completely cut her PPC budget which was getting pricey.

In the beginning I was definitely stressed about not being able to deliver, so really glad to see it's been going well with my SEO clients since I started offering this service.

2020 Revenue Tracker: $11,766 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Solid day today, in one of the SEO groups that I'm apart of, one friend doesn't do web/SEO anymore so he sent me over a lead.

Had a call with the business today and they gave me an overview of what they're looking for. They're in the fashion industry and their current site is really holding them back. I absolutely loved that they see it as a value add to their business, they mentioned the former site didn't get them the results they were looking for with the business.

We'll see how it goes, but it just seems like one of those clients that I know I could get great results for. Most importantly, if that goes well they want to look into SEO/other services after the site is ready to go.

It's kind of become second nature on these sales calls to ask the right questions to get all of the info I need to pitch them later, so it's been great to see that progress. Most likely will email the client tomorrow and look for a time to speak to go over my proposal.

Will keep everyone posted. In the meantime, working through on-boarding the newest client and getting those projects kicked off.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Great day today! I've been continuing my SEO outreach and a local plumbing company responded back kinda hesitant. I broke down exactly how I'd be able to help out and was able to address their concerns so they agreed to move forward on a month-to-month SEO package at $1,500 per month! They just paid the invoice so I'm really pumped right now.

Additionally, a client that's paying me $333.33 per month paid automatically and my $1,000 per month client paid so updating the numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $16,299.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $6,133 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal

Been an up and down week so far, the pain client basically came back and said he owes us nothing because we "didn't deliver". I wrote back an email basically asking him to point out where on the contract (where there are specific deliverables) we haven't delivered fully.

Spoke with my lawyer and she was describing how expensive this could get... to be honest, I'm at the point now where I may just let this one go. He still owes $6400 but I would have to spend easily 3-5k in lawyer and arbitration fees (and then have to fight to get the client to pay me back for those fees).

Definitely a learning experience with this pain client but just trying to focus my efforts on bringing on new clients and not getting bogged down by challenges.

 

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[Fox]

Hey Everyone,

One of my first big SEO clients just sent me an email that as their year long contract is set to expire at the end of this month, that they'd like to go ahead and cancel the services (they were paying $1,500 per month).

I was able to really improve their rankings and get them onto the first page for the keywords we decided to target but they mentioned that they would like to reallocate that money to other parts of the business.

I was kind of expecting this to be honest, in the first 3-4 months they were very engaged and active but after that, even though I was improving their results, they would open the monthly emails but never really engaged with them.

Updated numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $20,799.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

Don't sweat it Dan - a few current clients might drop out but double down hard on sales right now.

Also look to up what you are providing for current clients right now - do a monthly call or something and make sure you understand their situation and what they need right now.

If they don't want to spend $1,500 on SEO maybe you can split between SEO + ads etc.

Find out what do they want to spend on/what is most important and adjust to provide that.

Some clients might not need SEO right now but they still need you - you have given a ton of value and can get people results. So don't feel its "you" - you just need to adjust your services to match the new needs while also upping sales to account for the current situation.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Had another monthly client pay today (and another in a 12 month contract scheduled to pay tonight at midnight for automatic payments) so updating the numbers... both are SEO clients (one for $1k monthly and another for $1.5k monthly).

Updating the numbers below and including some more updates as well:

• A quick success story - my first SEO client (who I worked with for around 8 months) just emailed me and said even though we stopped our SEO work together around 6 months ago, she's still consistently on the top of the first page for the keywords we targeted and to this day she's still getting a steady supply of leads. She was a great person/client to work with so I'm really happy to hear feedback like that!
• Kicked off my digital ads today (using Google Ads) - a friend in a networking group is fantastic at setting up PPC campaigns and he needed help with his site/SEO work, so we decided to exchange services to help each other out. I'm starting off with a budget of $500/month and going to try this out for a few months
• Started doing a large amount of cold emailing outreach as well and have gotten great response rates already, even with a relatively small sample of 20 or so sent out. They're all highly personalized and I'm aiming to get through the remaining list of 100 or so more prospects to email before next week.

2020 Revenue Tracker: $33,765.66 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

 

[Fox]

Looking at your goals Dan and the current figures it looks like you are right on 100k if nothing else changes. So to hit the overall goals you only need to create 50k of additional income on top of that.

If that was fully linear it would take around an extra 2-2.5k of reoccurring SEO income each month stacked up on top of each other to hit 150k.

But I think you can do this a lot faster when you get things ready so you can sell nearly fulltime. I really hope this outsourcing goes well first time around so you can step it up as fast as possible.

Keep on the systems for now even if the initial gains aren't there right away (but hopefully they are). As soon as you can focus your efforts fulltime on selling/relationship building the progress will be massive.

Can't wait! Great work man - especially on top of what has been going on.

 

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