Moved to Scottsdale, Growing a Web Design Firm

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

OK, time for some tough love for myself. Regardless of what's happened in the past few months (random health issues, surgeries, etc) I have a goal and I need to put my head down and make this happen.

I just flew back to AZ last night and am working on some planning for the week and the next month or so to make this happen. Here's what I'm thinking to make $10k in monthly recurring rev. happen by June 30th of this year.

Here's where we stand:

• Goal: $10k per month
• Current: $2k per month (difference of $8k per month)
• Average Client Value will be around $1,250 per month
• Client Needed: Approximately 6

Current Pipeline:

1. Previous web design client (Investment Firm) - verbally agreed to $1,150 per month (have a call with him tomorrow actually) where things should kick off. However, although this is one of my favorite clients because he's a great guy, he is good for his word but he delays things a lot so I'm not going to have my hopes too high that this closes tomorrow.
2. Previous web design client (Fashion Designer) - this would be absolutely huge, I pitched them to help with SEO for $2,250 per month for a 12 month contract. I completely sold his right-hand man on it, but he is going to present it to the fashion designer this upcoming week. Basically, this guy is absolutely loaded so he flat out told me money isn't an issue, and I know the put myself in a great spot to really show the value. They also know, like and trust me since we've worked together so fingers crossed this one goes through... would be huge.
3. New prospect (Investment Firm in Scottsdale) - when doing outreach, have had 2 phone calls with a biz owner who said he's very interested in moving forward in having me redo the website (pitched for $4-7k) and SEO (packages from like $1k to 3k per month). No idea when this one would kick off and if this goes through, I'd have to do the website first so realistically it would have to close very fast for me to get this in time for my June 30th deadline.
4. New prospect (Law Firm in Scottsdale) - when doing outreach, owner responded and said he's be interested in $1,000 per month SEO work for maybe 3-4 months just to see how it goes and then take it from there.

Next Steps:

The above 4 are the most promising but there are a lot more in the pipeline as well that I need to follow up with. I think it's safe to assume that since I need 6 clients, I will get at least 2 from the current pipeline.

That means I will need to get 4 new clients from networking/outreach/referrals/etc by June 30th of this year.

• So far, when doing batches of outreach, I've gotten probably an average of 1 new client for each batch (typically reaching out to 10-25 businesses). This outreach is highly targeted and I'm using a strategy where I provide a detailed audit for the business that gets a much higher response rate (and takes me way more time).
• Following that logic, if I do 4 batches of big outreach that should yield me 4 new clients for SEO. Now, I need to get that out ASAP since it obviously isn't instant and the buying cycle is usually a few weeks to a month or so.

Strategic Plan:

• For the month of May, reach out to approximately 60 more businesses with my highly-targeted outreach approach (and be sure to follow up appropriately) to secure the 4 new clients, plus keep following up with the pipeline to lock in the other 2 clients.

It's ambitious, but I'm so damn close to going from ok monthly revenue to locked in solid 5 figures a month recurring revenue.

I'll just keep my focus on that goal for now, but after hitting the $10k per month mark I'll reanalyze and determine what my goal is to hit in MRR by Dec 31st of this year.

Will keep everyone posted!

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Did you know anything about web design beforehand? I can't imagine a banker knowing a great deal on web design on paper, which makes your story all the more impressive.

To be honest, I have a somewhat similar service to yours. I sell web design services but I outsource it to a friend of mine who knows how to do that. I trust him, he's been doing it for years, but I'm not 100% comfortable with it because I don't have the control, I'm losing revenue paying him, and the sites he can do aren't in the high end range.

I've been mulling over learning coding and web design but wasn't sure if I was falling into action faking when I should be focusing on sales or whatever. But after reading your amazing thread, and just listening to The Millionaire Fastlane where MJ says he learnt to code a site because he had to, I have no real excuse not to myself.

Really enjoying your story. Keep up the good work!

Nope, didn't know anything at all - took @Fox 's intro courses and one on udemy. I was so miserable at my job I would leave early (and piss off all of my management) at like 5 pm and spend 3-4 hours every single night learning how to code and other basic business things I'd need to learn (marketing, sales, etc).

I probably did this for easily 3-4 months... people always ask me how I had the motivation to do that, but honestly it was effortless because I hated my job and current situation so much I knew this was my light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Alright, today (and yesterday) was the first day of all out going crazy work to bring in new clients. A few updates from my end:

1. Called my former finance client, still waiting to hear back.
2. Called the potential lawyer SEO client, we set up a time to speak tomorrow morning.
3. Did 15 in-depth SEO audits (takes around an hour to 90 mins to do 5 or so) and sent those out.
4. Followed up via phone calls with 10 previously-sent SEO audits
5. Don't want to chase too aggressively with a few potential pipeline clients (fashion designer's right-hand contact said she would speak with the guy himself this week to pitch the SEO services and still waiting to hear back from a prospect who was interested in a site redesign + monthly SEO).

Really glad with how much I've gotten done today, I had to go to a weekly networking meeting and a final follow up with my surgeon so I had to wake up early (and work after those too) to really get everything done that I needed to.

Will keep everyone posted as I learn more, but just going to keep my head down and keep grinding away.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Quick update, my first SEO client is still really happy and she's gotten some great results so she went ahead (paying month to month) and paid for the next month's worth of work - adding in the additional $500 for tracking purposes.

On another quick note, the big travel site went live so should be collecting the roughly $1900 for that soon too (still have to make a few tweaks):

2019 Revenue Tracker: $20,785 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

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

 

[GuitarManDan]

$60K/year pace, that's a decent salary in a respectable job.

It's getting there! Funny enough, if you look from a cashflow perspective, just from the first 3 days of July... this has been my best month so far with the whole business (so far July has brought in $6,345 and there's no reason why this can't be a 5 figure month).

The cashflow situation is so much better with SEO, with web design I had one week where I closed $12k in one week but I'm still waiting to collect on one of those projects... getting paid each month on a recurring basis is such a game changer.

It just has this feeling like I'm so close to bringing this thing to the next level.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Ok as promised I know I haven't provided a more detailed update in a while so I wanted to shed some light into what's been going on in my world and what's going well and what I need to work on:

August and July were both solid months, I know I can and will do better but they both ended up bringing in around $7k in cash flow each of the last two months so that was encouraging. I've had a few really promising SEO leads fall through but that's just part of the game, looking at how to improve upon that and I know from my experience that each no is just one step closer to the next yes.

Here are the notable updates in terms of the current pipeline and what's going on with the business:

1. (Most Importantly) SEO Clients Are Seeing Great Results

All of the regular SEO clients that I've been working with have been really happy and I've seen steady progress getting them to the first page of Google results. It was intimidating at first as I was learning a new skill, but it's great to see that I'm delivering for the clients so far.

2. Huge Deal With Lots of Complexities and Back and Forth:

This came in from a referral months ago, I've met with the owner 5-6 times in person, had multiple phone calls, created a customized contract just for this deal, found a partner to work with on this one (who would handle the technical aspect as it isn't just a simple site), agreed to terms with the partner (simple split of who would get how much revenue), but it's losing some momentum.

We all agreed to a $16,000 budget for a complete website redesign and platform buildout and then a monthly maintenance plan of $500 per month after that.

The decision maker is super hyper critical of every little detail because he got burned by the last web guy. He sent us back 30-40 different comments of feedback on the contract we sent over and we addressed them all in a timely manner. It seems like he's getting cold feet at the last second though he's getting hung up on super minor details.

Ran it by @Fox and we both agreed the best thing to do is not to push and to really work on continuing to build trust. This is my first deal I've dealt with in this ballpark and it's been a roller coaster - at times I was almost sure it would never go through and at other times it seemed like a done deal. Who knows what'll happen but I'm putting myself in the best possible position.

3. Larger Recurring Revenue Client Update

As included in the original post, the fashion designer client who was paying $3k per month for SEO was only for a few months, now that all of the on-page SEO has been completed, they want me just to provided monthly reporting for $200 a month so I will update the recurring revenue below to reflect that.

4. First Time Someone Hasn't Come Through With a Verbal Commitment (Yet)

Almost exactly one month ago, I had a call with a lawyer biz owner who agreed to do 4 months at $1,000 per month for SEO and then take it month to month after that. It was a really firm yes, he told me to send him over the contract, invoice, etc and he would take care of it and was excited to work together.

I haven't updated my numbers yet on this one because he still hasn't paid, but I've spoken with him twice now. He said it was on his to do list but he was preparing for a big trip and he hasn't sent any additional correspondence yet so I sent him a quick chaser email today.

5. Promising Referral Came In for SEO Services

A friend was asked if he knew anyone who did great SEO and he referred them to me. This person just does website design and he has a potential client who wants a new site + SEO.

We had a quick call and then he told me this client said he has a $1600 budget per month for SEO work. I told the web designer I would give him a monthly 10% commission for any deal that gets worked out here and he was happy to hear that.

Funny enough, this business owner is located on the east coast right by where I grew up so I'm sure that'll help by adding in another trust factor since we never met. I'll keep everyone posted but I have a good feeling about this one.

6. Successful Phoenix HVAC Company Decides Not to Move Forward with SEO

I've really gotten great at looking for opportunities everywhere since starting this business and when a networking business owner I've known for 1+ year just told me he paid to have someone work on Google Ads campaigns for him, I saw a huge green light.

I did an SEO audit for him and he really could've used my services if he wanted to bring in clients this way. He is running a very successful HVAC company here in the valley and he wanted to meet with me to discuss this further.

This is the first time I've ever heard this before, but he basically told me that his business is expanding crazy fast and that he stays up at night losing sleep because he's terrified he's going to lose the same quality he provided when the company was smaller and that he has so many leads that he doesn't know what to do with them. He basically told me that he was afraid of switching on another marketing channel when he doesn't have to.

I know there's opportunity there just trying to figure out how to approach that but I'm not trying to push SEO on anyone who doesn't need it so I completely understood.

7. Time to Bring in More Leads

I redid my pipeline tracking today and it was a good wake up call.. there aren't nearly enough leads in the pipeline at the moment. I need to keep pushing myself to get more in there.

I want to be as efficient with my time as possible and I know I did around 100 free SEO audits for cold outreach, since I've already done the work for those, why not send follow up emails or calls instead of redoing more work from scratch?

Big things are coming.. just need to keep focusing and make it happen! Updated recurring rev below ($3k per month client updated to $200 per month now):

2019 Revenue Tracker: $34,655 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

*Edit*: Did some quick hourly work at my usual rate of $100 per hour for a new client with some simple stuff for 2 hours ($200 added to the overall revenue #s)

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $2,500 Per Month / $10,000 Per Month Goal

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Another quick update, worked like crazy last week to really build out my pipeline again and I have some solid leads already. It also was really nice that 3 different referrals called me about web design projects that they needed help with.

I need to update the monthly figures below, as my first SEO client (paying $500 per month) sent me an email out of the blue basically saying that she was happy with how things have been but she wanted to scale back to me just doing monthly reporting and she was willing to pay me $100 per month for those services.

She has been a pleasure to work with and has given me a lot of referrals so I wrote back saying I completely understood but did mention that there's a good chance her SEO rankings could drop back down which could lead to less leads in the door.

Updated numbers below... not going to lie, seeing the monthly recurring revenue drop like this is providing a good kick in the a$$. I know I can do better and need to put my head down and just get this done.

If I just sit around right now I'm only looking at making over $2k this month or so and that's not acceptable. Going to keep pushing and working to make this another great month.

What's been amazing though is that I've spent 0 hours on any outreach for web design all year - it's been growing completely organically through referrals which is an excellent sign. Instead of just doing the usual stuff, I'm working on adapting and instead of just settling for charging small amounts of websites, I've been actively learning and taking action to get much higher-paying jobs for web design.

This video here from The Futur is amazingly helpful for anyone who works in a digital services business where the price isn't fixed - I've been implementing what I've learned here to work on pitching 5 figure contracts instead of the usual stuff!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivKnj9ffcmE


2019 Revenue Tracker: $34,655 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $2,100 Per Month / $10,000 Per Month Goal

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Quick update for the numbers below as my $1,500 monthly client paid automatically for the first of the month:

2019 Revenue Tracker: $44,680 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $2,100 Per Month / $10,000 Per Month Goal

 

[Andy Black]

I was really indifferent on the outcome of this one, I was just excited to pitch in person and get ready to deal with any objections that came up. I viewed it as a solid learning experience regardless of what happens.

^^^ If there’s a secret to sales I suspect it’s this.

Be excited to speak to someone to find out how you can help them, but be indifferent to the outcome of making a sale.

 

[GuitarManDan]

What a tremendous year for you. Congrats on your success. Really happy to see the results of such a consistent work ethic.

Thanks man, I really feel like I've learned so much this year and really reinforced a lot of sales and marketing skills so I'm excited about that. The challenge I'm facing is that I'm my own biggest critic and not reaching the goals I set out ($10k monthly and $100k total for the year) is making me a little bit confused about how to feel about this year overall.

I'm putting a lot of focus this month into what goals I want to set for next year and making sure that I have a plan to complete those.

Incredible job dude, you inspire me a ton.

I went for two massive businesses in the past (both failed haha) and never had the chance to do this solo/freelance type of work. Now I find myself having to get a job again but your approach is incredible because you can keep this up until you find something bigger.

Also, what are your thoughts on webflow.com? The "No-Code" movement is starting to gain a lot of attention online.

Thanks! The plan in 2020 is to use this business to pay the bills and start building another business with a much bigger scale additionally. I know I've mentioned it before but I want to be in an industry where if you hit a homerun it's life-changing money instead of just "good" money.

Honestly, haven't looked into webflow too much but I've heard great things. I will have to check it out but for now I've mainly stuck to building with either HTML templates or WordPress.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Just a few quick updates from my side for what I'm focusing on at the moment to kick things off the right way this year:

1. Newest SEO Client - Really happy with the results even after one month of SEO work for the lawyer client I picked up last month. Sent him over the monthly review and invoiced him the remaining $500 (he only paid a 1/2 deposit for the first month) and then another invoice for $1000 for the following month (and set it up with automatic billing) so once he pays, I won't have to worry about chasing for money each month. He had been burned by another SEO firm in the past so it's nice to be able to deliver here so far.

2. Building out the SEO Clients Pipeline - This week I'm going to pushing pretty aggressively with a long list of former networking connections, clients, and other personal connections I've made for any business that I know I can add value to with SEO. I have a list of around 30 individuals/businesses at the moment and I'm going to take time this week to send out a personalized outreach (whether that's a phone call or email) with the main focuses being on adding value upfront (quick free seo audit) or just genuinely reaching out to former connections I haven't caught up with in a while. I know it's beginning of the year so marketing budgets (although they may not be set yet) are being discussed and reset.

3. General Health / Balance with Work - Anyone who knows me personally knows 2019 was a strange year for me, lots of random medical issues came up... very fortunately none are long-term or serious for the future but due to surgeries, lots of tests, etc it had me staying indoors more than I'd like. I'm making it a big emphasis this year to get to a place where I can regularly go to the gym and get in better shape and be more active. I've been going to a physical therapist and have already seen some fantastic results getting rid of some chronic injuries that were keeping me out of the gym.

4. Next Business Venture - I've been re-listening to Unscripted to start getting some ideas and be in the right frame of mind to lock down my next business idea. I still have a lot of work and research to do, but I'm starting to get some criteria in my head (thanks to Unscripted ) that will make it easier to filter ideas through. I will share more details once I'm able to really iron them out and start coming up with those ideas. Because this thread is available on the public side of the forum, I won't be divulging exactly what I'll be doing (I've seen too many horror stories of people unfortunately running into issues when they do that) but I'll aim to be as transparent as possible.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

I've been pretty sick the last few days and although that usually accompanies being miserable, this is the first time I've had one of these typical fever/coughing/fatigue illnesses since I started this business over 2 years ago, and it's making me extremely grateful that I'm out of the Corporate America lifestyle that I remember with this.

When I lived in NYC, it wasn't hard to imagine that between the brutal weather, taking the subway and being exposed to all of those people I passed everyday, and the stress of working crazy hours... I used to get illnesses like these all the time, and it was so damn frustrating when my management would never let us work from home, although everything we needed to do could be done remotely.

I always joked that DayQuil should get a sponsorship from the big investment banks as their official drink... it was insane the toxic culture that was created where people HAD to come into work sick as a dog because it hurt their potential promotions, bonuses, future at the company because they were seen as lazy or not a team player if they worked from home... God forbid they actually took a sick day.

Anyway, I went to the doctor yesterday and got a good laugh when she asked if I needed a note to take a few days off of work.

I feel just so grateful and fortunate that I'm in a spot now where I have the freedom that I thought was impossible just a few years ago. I still have a long, long way to go, but it's been a nice moment to look back and see how far I've gotten from those toxic environments.

Still in rough shape, but feeling good enough to get back to working full days again so I'm jumping back in to continue to work on current projects and to build out that pipeline for more SEO clients. Will keep everyone posted.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

When I was prospecting like crazy and working to grow this business, I kept telling myself I wanted to get to the point where I had so many clients and projects that I would NEED to start offloading and outsourcing work, to basically force my hand to get smarter with my system... I believe I'm finally at that place now.

It's been a lot of long days - so far this week and last week there have been a lot of 12+ hour days. The positive of all of this is that I feel comfortable enough with my abilities to outsource a large portion of the web design work that I'll take on in the future, for SEO I still want to control most of it just because I still am improving and learning.

Anyway, here are some notable things that have been up since I last posted:

• Had my first mastermind call this morning with @Fox and a few others that I met at the summit. I know it was suggested to join as many as possible, but I know myself and I excel when I'm not spread too thin, so I always want to give everything my 110% when I commit... it's an excellent group and we capped the number of people already so that it remains small, but I already see the huge potential from all of the amazing people I can learn from in that group.
• Had to send a chaser (after speaking with my lawyer) for the client that's being a pain. My email tracking is telling me that he's viewing the emails but he hasn't responded yet. This time, at the suggestion of my contract lawyer, I mentioned that he has 7 calendar days to pay or else I will need to pursue further collection actions. Kept it vague on purpose, I know I don't want this to go to court and I'm sure the client's in the same boat... we've given him all the opportunities in the world here to just settle this, but if he keeps ignoring me when I have subcontractors to pay, it may need to go down that route.
• Working hard to finish up the first rough draft for my newest financial services client (providing a site and then ongoing SEO). Have the outline and structure done for the site, just need to fill it in with content, images, styling, etc. Worked with the partners at the business to select the specific keywords we're going to target for SEO so we kicked that off as well already.
• Another client I've been working with in the event planning niche for a website is 99.9% finished, just waiting on the owner to send me over her suggested copy. She's been a pleasure to work with, but the last month or so there's been a lot of promises with specific dates of when she'd get it to me which has been a little bit challenging, but I'll continue to send her periodic chasers to get in touch.
• Lots of proposals going out. One thing that really helped me after the first year of business and literally making $0 some months is that you always need to be prospecting every week so I've continually been building up a dynamic pipeline of prospects that I keep working on.

There's a lot going on, but I'll keep it at that for now with this post so I don't write an essay here. If I just close out one more project or any new deal, February will be a 5 figure month which would be a solid way to start the year (right now it's around $8k brought in for Feb). Will keep everyone posted.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Wanted to share a quick overview of what I've been up to lately with the business (besides just updating revenue numbers):

• Challenging SEO Client - For the first time, I've been dealing with a client that I haven't gotten to the first page of Google results within a few months (only been about 3 at the moment). The more I'm digging into this client, my guess is that he used some type of spammy link building software in the past. The backlinks to his site are almost all garbage (the SEO course that I learned from warned me about taking on clients like this) so I'm working closely with some experts in this field to do what I can to increase those.
• Onboarding Newest SEO Client - Really excited to this new one that I just closed. It's a competitive niche, but I'm up for the challenge and know that I'm going to work hard to make it happen. Finished up the list of keywords for them and now going to take care of the on-page SEO this week for them.
• New SEO Client Outreach - A mastermind that I'm in that meets once a week has a member who does social media marketing and one way that she's gotten a lot of clients has surprised me. Instead of just being stubborn and deciding it wouldn't work, I decided to jump right in and try it out. Whether or not it is successful, I'll be sure to update in here how that goes.
• Business and Personal Taxes Finished - Hiring a solid CPA has really paid off, I'm obviously not an expert but I was expecting a large tax bill, and instead, I'm actually getting a refund from the state and fed government! The CPA explained the logic and showed me the relative rules and regulations involved so I learned something new about the benefits of owning an LLC that's taxed as an S-Corp
• Weighing My Options With Frustrating Client - I've posted about it before, but the lawyer I spoke with gave me a rough idea how much it would cost to bring this client who's refusing to pay and has been extremely condescending throughout the entire process to arbitration. He still owes me $6.4k and the costs could far exceed that (even though he'd have to pay the legal fees). Trying to decide if it's worth the time/stress/headaches, but we have a solid case. We tried for months and months to make this client happy, but his demands got more and more ridiculous as time went on. The best analogy I can give is imagine you were a mechanic and you agreed to fix an engine for X dollars. After fixing it, the customer said that X dollars was a lot of money, so therefore you need to fix the transmission, taillights, brakes, etc for no extra budget. When you tried to be reasonable, he got more and more rude and aggressive.
• Potential New E-Commerce Client - Been going back and forth with a solid referral for a few months now that seemed like a strong lead. As I'm sure all of the veterans on here know, you need to just expect the unknown at this point when running a business. She mentioned that she may be getting laid off from her job so that may put a damper on this project or severely reduce the budget she has that we discussed. Will keep everyone posted.

Besides that, the newest financial services client is really happy, we're almost done with the website and both partners have shared really positive feedback so far. Going to optimize the site for SEO and then get that launched ASAP and also working on finishing up a few more projects to collect the remaining % of those invoices.

It's definitely a good thing that I've been so crazy busy, it's letting me take a step back and realize it's time to seriously ramp up my outsourcing and start acting as more of a business owner and less of a freelancer!

 

[GravyBoat]

I’m fortunately in a place where I don’t need the money so I could just walk away. Realistically, my time is better spent focusing on getting new clients, working hard for the clients I currently have, and planning for the future instead of getting caught in the weeds with this nonsense of this super toxic client.

After attempting and failing to do exactly what you're doing last year, and dealing with exact same scenario from clients, I highly suggest moving on if you haven't already.

It's always gonna be in the back of your mind.

Personally, I realized this business isn't for me, because I absolutely hate these type of interactions. I had multiple in a few short months, and ultimately failed because I couldn't deliver what they wanted at a reasonable price / time combination.

Your time is literally better spent making that $6.4k back on more clients. And you can't put a price on your mental health.

Don't take it personally at all. The guy would have done that to anyone. You just happened to be in the situation. If you went above and beyond and you can look yourself in the mirror and say that, that's all you can do.

Glad to see this thread is still going. Been watching from the beginning.

Keep hustling and set your sights on larger clients.

The people I know who really kill it doing what you're doing, are running PPC and building funnels for medium-large size companies.

Their target audience is over 5M/year revenue, most are over 10M/year. So they got money.

At that level it's all about who you know. They make connections in person, network, go to summits / conferences, meet the right people. They aren't cold calling or spamming UpWork much. They all worked at large agencies before, and poached clients they worked with personally from the agencies they left, then built their networks off of this.

I think for this to really become Fastlane, you're gonna need some breathing room. You godda close a few FAT clients, with big monthly retainers to allow you to focus. Once you deliver results for them, you have access to their network, which will include marketing teams from other similar sized companies (all of which have money).

I'm sure you've seen this guy, but here's a late video of him closing a 20k/mo client. How much breathing room would that give you?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coFteTzezcQ


The way I see it, if this 20 year old fool can do it, so can you. Even if he's fudging numbers for the sake of selling a course, these deals exist. It's up to you to find them. Start looking where they lie.

Wish you the best with this COVID bullshit going on. There is still money to be made. Keep posting. Great thread.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

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.

Hey Rob,

It's definitely possible that a few others could drop off due to the coronavirus craziness going on, but I don't think this client was one of those. They also mentioned in the email that they understand I got them great results with the SEO campaign, but they were expecting it to lead to more business than it did.

I want to do what I can to learn from this and the challenge that I see is that I can increase the SEO rankings, but if there's an issue with their online sales system, then there's not much I can do unless they're willing to change that. They were using Wix for their site for a financial services firm that manages over $1 bil USD so in multiple meetings, I was aiming for me to help them design a completely new site that would convert better and rank better as well, but they didn't seem interested.

100% agree with you though that it's key now to be engaged with clients to see how they are doing. I currently am onboarding 3 SEO clients at the same time so I've been going crazy with the first few months of on-page content writing and making sure to be in constant communication with all 3 to show them the value I'm providing.

If I do get an email about the coronavirus and canceling services, I believe I can jump on a call with them and work with them to provide other things like you mentioned that may be more helpful like a combo of SEO and PPC.

Thanks as always for your input! It's crazy times out there, but definitely good lessons to be learned for all business owners.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

$5,533 Per Month

Nice, that's like a $66,000 a year salary, not too shabby. And in AZ, that's like $166K in New York.

This is how it all begins! Strong progress.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Any ideas for the conversion to a more Fastlane space, from a skilled specialized unit (selling websites) to a legacy value system? It's nice to see you ramping up, just want to be careful of getting comfortable in a direct time-for-$$ trade.

Hey MJ - completely agreed with that take, things have been going well with this business but at the end of the day it's more of a traditional time for money tradeoff.

This year I've been systematizing the mainly SEO work (stepped back from web design a bit) I've been doing now to handoff most of the tedious parts so that I can get my time and capacity back to start working on the next thing.

I see this business as being able to fund my expenses and lifestyle as I focus on the next business venture that will be more in the Fastlane space. I've spent too much time trying to think of the right next move/idea instead of just taking action so that's definitely on me to adjust for now.

What I'm doing to make sure that happens sooner rather than later is setting a deadline for the next two weeks with a mastermind I'm in (met them all at the fastlane summit) to start executing on the next business venture. I'm going to stick with one idea and move forward with that. Even if it isn't the "perfect" idea - I will learn so much more jumping in than just waiting around.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

I'll make a point to post at least once a month on here to provide the monthly updates, but it's just been crazy busy on my side (in a good way) with both businesses.

It's a bit more challenging to post updates about this business since I'm not revealing the actual concept of it (only from reading too many horror stories of people's businesses getting blatantly ripped off haha) but the more I work on this business... not only is there more upside that I see, but the barriers to entry are pretty high with how challenging it has been.

My plan may change, but I think once it's more established I'll reveal the nature of the business, but for now I'm still going to keep that hidden for now - so I'll do what I can to give as much info as possible without giving away the business with my updates.

New Business Updates:

• The basic framework has all been set, I had the LLC created, I had the bank account created, I set up the payment portal on my website, I had a lawyer draft the terms and conditions of working with me for this new business, but I knew there still was A LOT of work to be done to figure out and iron out my process before I could think of scaling... that was basically what happened in March. There's still a long way to go, but I made a lot of progress and have been hustling the entire month on this business and working through the challenges that come up.
• Although March ended up being $0 in revenue, I just closed my biggest single sale for $1000 today, so April is already my best month yet only two days in!
• In order to really deal with the challenges that I've been facing, I have a new way to pivot so that I don't run into so many issues in the future that I'm currently working on and I have a strategy in place for how I can scale this up without having to spend a crazy amount on pay per click advertising or anything along those lines.
• I don't feel like I'm ready to scale things up yet, but being a perfectionist myself... I don't think I'll ever "feel ready" so I'm just going to go for it this month and see what happens. I'm sure more challenges/issues will be uncovered and exaggerated as I scale my operations for this business that I may not have noticed before so that will be great to keep tightening up the process.

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

Mar Revenue: $0 (-100% from Feb)
Apr Revenue (so far): $1,000
Total Revenue: $2,000

 

[GuitarManDan]

Is this web design/seo services and rep management, the 2 businesses?

Is there a spread you can share?

Congrats!

Hey MJ - thanks man! Sure, so it’s those two businesses and the split was around the following for August:

Rep Mgmt: $20.5k
SEO/Web Business: $10k

 

[Vigilante]

Hey everyone,

It's been about one year since I joined the forum and thanks to the great advice of some members of the community, I've been able to completely change my life and move in a better direction.

To keep it simple, I was working at an investment bank in NYC and absolutely hated my life / how I was treated.

This week I just moved into my apartment in Scottsdale after making the cross country drive solo. A few months back I started my web design business with the help of Fox's course which has provided tremendous value and I've already closed a $1250 and a $4000 sale so far (a few other possible ones in the pipeline too).

When I was trying to find my way, I probably cold emailed 250+ businesses and cold called 150+ with lots of rejection, but it was a great learning experience.

I know a lot of members are from the Scottsdale/Phoenix area, and as I'm new to the area, it would be great to meet up if anyone is interested to grab a coffee/drink sometime.

Thanks!

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

 

[Vigilante]

Just curious: can you stay active during the summer and spend time outdoors or do people mostly stay indoors during the day and get out only in the mornings or evenings?

My mentor died a few years back, but lived in Scottsdale.

He would call me from the 8th green in the heat of the day, when it was 110 degrees in the sun.

Life is what you make it.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

In NJ/NY, we always had a good deal of humidity in the summer months, the buzzword I keep hearing since I've been here is "dry heat" so we'll see!

From a business perspective, this week I'm working on setting up an LLC (seems like electing to be taxed as an S-corp is my best bet). Just set up a PO box in case I move from this apartment in AZ and spoke with a law firm to get more details around the AZ LLC process.

I also joined a sports league in Scottsdale - figure it's a good way to meet people when I'm new here.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Someone in Fox's inside group made a great suggestion of sending the owner a value-adding email every week or so, maybe an interesting article about email marketing and something that relates to his project.

Great idea.

Maybe send some ideas or a few questions on what's important to him and his firm. Something like, "when a potential client visits your website, what's the #1 thing you want them to know? Or do?"

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Wanted to provide a quick update on how the 2 big projects have been going and how everything else has been. Here are a few quick points:

A. Both projects are on hold at the moment and will pick up in December so I've been working the last few weeks on really bringing in new projects.
-The fashion designer's site is 99% done but for some reason he wants to wait until a specific date in Dec to launch the site.
-The investment mgmt site is 50% completed, I sent over the first full draft but the owner needs to review with his partners and they are super busy until Dec

B. I'm starting to really target more blue collar businesses (construction, steel manufacturing, etc) as targeting financial services businesses has a difficult component which makes it harder to sell (the SEC/FINRA regulations of websites are crazy and business owners seem to see it more as a risk of breaking rules vs. upside of bringing in new clients).

C. It's always tough when I'm just doing outreach vs. having a balance of doing client work and outreach, but I'm pushing through and doing a lot of cold calls, social media messaging and networking to bring in some new business.

D. Pretty promising CPA site in Scottsdale here that agreed to work together for $4k budget - he's just super busy so it's not officially closed but we've been speaking for months and months so I have a good feeling that one goes through in the next month or so.

E. Just a few general life updates, it's been so cool that really taking chances here has been working out. I've made some amazing friends and have built a pretty big social circle out here. It's funny... back in NYC, I would just be complacent with the same 2 friends or so... when I actually try to meet people and make new friends it's funny how well it's going.

With my good month in Sept too, I also decided to get a personal trainer for maybe 6 weeks max (won't be too much money with the plan I got) as I really want to make exercising and going to the gym a habit. Still working on finding a girlfriend out here too but that's something I'm not trying to force too much, just trying to enjoy things out here and take chances when I see an opportunity.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Another quick update - the fashion designer's website is all finished and I just cashed the remaining 50% ($2,250) check into the business account.

Not sure how to track that for my 2019 $100k challenge but I figure if it's income I'm reporting for this year and the work was done this year (finished early Jan) I'll count it.

That puts me at the following so far:

2019 Challenge: $6,250 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

 

[GuitarManDan]

$8,000/mo, living in sunshine, setting your own hours, killing your own work... thread updated to GOLD. Congrats man, sorry it took me awhile to catch up on your progress.

I've so freaking excited for ya.

And hearing the family coming around as well is great news. Talk is cheap, done is expensive. And you've done done. ;-)

Thanks so much MJ! End of Feb will mark a year since I moved out here... it's been quite the amazing experience so far.

Not just challenging myself with the business, but taking more chances making lots of great new friends and just making it all work out here starting out from nothing.

Going to keep pushing myself and working smart to bring the business to the next level this year!

 

[The Abundant Man]

hey man, I'm already inspired by your journey and would like to start my own. I have a question tho, are you doing everything yourself (webdevelopment/design) or do you hire someone? if you do it yourself, which courses do you recommend to learn the stuff that is needed.

I would really appreciate your help and advice.

warm regards

There are so many courses. A lot of them are really good too. Here's the first two that I started. You really don't need any more unless if you want to go really hardcore with web development and making applications


https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-web-development-bootcamp/

https://www.udemy.com/design-and-develop-a-killer-website-with-html5-and-css3/

Here are some other helpful threads for you:
GOLD! - How to Learn Code, Start a Web Company, $15k+ per month within 9 months

WEB SCHOOL - Fox's 2019 Make $100k Starting Web Design from Scratch Challenge

There's another thread by Fox but I forget what it's called and I don't have it bookmarked

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Have good news and some annoying news.

Good news is the client paid the first month of the invoice so just waiting for them to sign the contract before I kick things off!

Annoying news is I found out I have some unexpected medical stuff going on and will need to have surgery within the next week or two, so I may be MIA for a while.

The work is a good distraction though so I’m just gonna keep moving forward.

I’ll go back and edit this post later for the total revenue but monthly income is currently at $2,000 per month locked in with recurring revenue clients.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Do you ever have trouble keeping up with all the work or delivering the SEO results and such? Sounds pretty intense! This is legit my fav thread though. You've been kicking a$$. I think I have trouble focusing moreso than others. Never tried Adderall but I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid and I think its been haunting me lol

Not yet, but I'm expecting things to really ramp up over the next few months! That being said, I want to bring in so much business I basically force my hand to have to outsource.

The SEO course and methodology I've been learning is all about how to scale up though so I know I'm in good hands and will be able to figure it out.

At the moment I'm currently in the early stages of working with 2 SEO monthly clients and 1 web design client (2 other web design clients still outstanding but the projects put on hold for a month or so) so it's been doable.

I guess I look at it this way, I know I can figure it out and overdeliver for the clients just by working smart and reaching out to the communities (like this one) that I'm apart of in case I run into any challenges. The big thing I need to focus on is to just keep driving sales and bringing on new clients.

Quick Update is I had a really great call this morning with the fashion designer's people and in a week or so I should have more feedback, but that would be for a $2,200 per month (12 month minimum deal)... combined with the others I have, that alone would cover my monthly expenses and more which would be a HUGE relief.

Basically, the fashion designer's right-hand manager is completely down and says SEO is needed and I'm the right person to do it.. we just need to show the value to the fashion designer himself. She even told me money obviously isn't an issue for them, the guy reasonably just wants to know what to expect and what I would be providing.

The goals haven't changed, still 10k/month by June 30th of this year locked in, but just getting to the milestone of knowing I'll have my expenses met and be able to save money will be a huge relief after a crazy ride the past year or so.

Just need to keep working smart and taking the action and I'll get there!