Moved to Scottsdale, Growing a Web Design Firm

[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?

I would tell you though in Tampa in July and August the heat plus humidity is rough during daylight hours. Most people retreat to the conditioned air and/or pools/Gulf of Mexico to find relief during the worst of what Tampa has to offer.

 

[steelandchrome]

The heat is bearable for short bursts but I cannot stand to be outside in the summer for more than an hour or two at a time personally. I had heat exhaustion about 8 years ago and now I overheat a lot faster than I used to. Just have a good A/C system and park in the garage and you will be ok.

Oh, and as far as scorpions I live on a golf course next to a mountain area and I have had 4 in two years including one that actually crawled over my foot while I was in bed! Luckily no stings, but it all depends on where you live if you will see them. Closer to the desert or the older the area the more you will see.

 

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[CareCPA]

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.

You can hold off on the S election if you want, until you see if it makes sense.
S Corp traps you into payroll and an additional tax filing. A single-member LLC will show up on your personal return. You might want to wait until the added cost of running payroll and having another tax filing outweighs the cost of self-employment tax that is being saved.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Could use some advice/help on this one. Here's some quick background on what happened:

• Networking contact referred me to a successful investment mgmt firm in Chicago (owner lives in Scottsdale currently)
• Owner emailed me saying he liked my other sites and we had a great 1 hour call or so about what he's looking to do.
• I sent over a proposal for just under $7,000 to do a complete website redesign and some help with other things (email marketing setup for example).

The owner just responded today saying that the price sounds good to him and that he'll take a closer look this weekend, but he wouldn't be able to get started until end of August.

So it's great news, but I know to be cautiously optimistic and want to focus on what I can do to increase the chances of this deal closing.

He lives by me so I figured a personal face to face meeting would be a great idea, but he's traveling and said we can get coffee to further discuss this at the end of August.

My Question: What are some good ways to keep up this relationship and to stay in his peripherals so that when he's ready to move forward (end of Aug / early Sept) he will want to move forward and not look to other competitors?

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.

Thanks so much!

 

[GuitarManDan]

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)



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

Thread upgraded to NOTABLE.

Hey MJ,

Thanks so much! This whole experience has been so incredible and rewarding (moving cross country to AZ where I didn't know anyone and working on growing out the business).

I still have a long way to go, but I really like the direction the business is headed and I'm going to work my a$$ off to continue to grow this business and make it work.

 

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[NMdad]

Cool!

Next suggestion: Although it can be tempting to wait until you get a green-light on that big project/client, it's important to keep doing things to fill your funnel of prospective projects. That way, you're not dependent on any 1 project or client. And you'll care far less if you lose any project/client, since you'll have a bunch of other prospects in the pipeline. More prospects = less risk (and shorter time to generate revenue).

 

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[Fox]

On par for 100k - nice work dude.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Dan, you mentioned doing SEO for a personal training gym. Do you have a recommendation for a course that you use and like? I just finished a site for a friend who does personal training and he doesn’t believe he will get any traffic. I’m trying to prove him wrong and set him up with some good SEO.

Even an online resource would be great. I was searching around yesterday but wasn’t coming up with anything substantial. I also didn’t have a lot of time.

Thanks.

Hey man,

The one I went with was pretty pricey but it was highly recommended and even one SEO deal would make the course pay for itself 10x over.

If you don't want to break the bank you could look into some starter ones in Udemy. I'd just filter by top rated ones and go with one that isn't too pricey as a good intro.

There's a lot of moving parts so I think it's key to put in the work to cover things like how to do keyword research, on page SEO, off page SEO, etc. Feel free to send me a private message and I can explain a little more.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Just seeing all of the replies now, here's my feedback for the recent replies here:

@huseyin - Yes for now I've handled everything myself. For some larger projects that I have in the works, I am planning on outsourcing some components (since now I've really learned them and will be an effective manager instead of just putting my faith in someone not taking advantage). The courses someone else linked to are the ones that I mainly used as well in the beginning.

Just keep in mind, it's not about the courses or any of that... it's what you do with them. Obviously learn the skills and work hard to deliver for the clients but don't get too bogged down on the technical side. I focused heavily on the sales side of things because I knew without sales I didn't have a business and that I could apply what I learned in sales to ANY other business I end up involved with.

@BlackMagician - I've been swamped with work this week haven't had a chance to really dive into your progress thread but added it on my to do list and will see what you've been up to.

@Wiezel - Sales, marketing, more sales and more marketing! On the technical side, HTML, CSS and WordPress.

I've always been a perfectionist so I have to constantly tell myself it doesn't always have to be an A+ but instead focus on aiming for a B+ / A- and then editing after. This has been a huge help for me, as a common beginner mistakes I made and others make... I didn't want to get started until I knew "everything".

@The Abundant Man - thanks for sharing those links. Agreed those are solid.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Congrats on your success so far. I also think you are severely underestimating the amount of knowledge and experience that goes into SEO. It seems to me like you have only taken 1 course and have never worked in SEO.

SEO is all about experience and applying/experimenting. SEO clients was to see past success as there are many scam artists out there in the industry. Also just because your a web developer doesn't mean you will be good at SEO. There is more to SEO than just technical on-site work.

Hi Twiizlar,

If I didn't make it clear enough than that's my fault, but note as I'm starting out in this space I'm not going to bring on a client with amazing SEO (maybe he ranks 2nd or 3rd and wants the top spot), I'm going to use the same approach I did when I learned web design - only bring on clients where I know I can add value with my current skillset.

Working in the web design space, just from on page SEO work I have gotten every single client I've worked with except one to page one for the main keywords they'd be targeting (example, financial planning (city name).

I'm a perfectionist and it's difficult to not fall trap to the common mistake of "I need to be 100% an expert in this field before offering it". I sold websites to clients before I fully knew how to deliver on every promise.

One thing I know I will 100% do is deliver for the clients that I get. I have the network of experts in this field and I will put in the hard work to always get them results and I will take on SEO clients first with garbage SEO where I know I can offer huge value.

Yes, it's one course, but I didn't invest in it just for the course (as it was pretty expensive). I invested because the creator has a proven track record and he has weekly calls and a private facebook group with access to experts in this field.

I'm not unrealistic, of course the first few clients will be a learning curve but I know how I work and I know I will get great results for the people I work with in this space.

I always appreciate constructive criticism, but I also know the importance of learning as I grow and making sure that I bring on clients where I know I can add value as I completely agree a lot of companies have had bad experiences with SEO firms.

 

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[BlackMagician]

I know I mentioned I'd take a look at your progress thread, apologies man I've been crazy busy. If you want you could shoot me a PM with any questions that come up and I'm much better at responding to those haha.

No Problem man. I am already taking ideas and tips from your progress thread. Right now i have 4 web design project in hand which i want to complete before i hustle for outbound sales. But i think that's my mistake here. What do you do on handling the projects in hand and going out to get more sales? in short prospecting.

I feel if i have some projects in hand i stop prospecting. What are you doing right now to overcome this?

I am also facing the same challenge of 7th point. They think of that as commodity. When i say i usually charge 25k to 40K INR, they think that it's too much. Even though i have clients who paid that.

Maybe my mindset block or i am not able to target right people.

The SEO course I took speaks about this specifically and how he outsources different parts to trusted vendors (whether it's on-page SEO, link building, etc).

Which course buddy? kindly let me know. In my previous company, i handled their SEO and ranked their website from nowhere to 1st rank in 5-7 keywords in 5months. But it was in 2016. Need to brush off that skill with latest updates and sales approach.

I will PM you from now if i have questions. Tracking your posting time since 1 month

 

[Andy Black]

I want to bring in so much business I basically force my hand to have to outsource.

Likewise. That's how I'm doing it. Don't solve the problem till it becomes a problem.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Unfortunately this ridiculous saga keeps going on - the other co owner sent me a furious email making it seem like I turned them down because they didn’t have “an unlimited wallet”

I’m done with this, I’m not going to reply anymore, there’s nothing I can do or say at this point that won’t set these people off.

Just hoping they’re not ridiculous enough to try to trash my reputation (bad business reviews on google, Facebook, etc) but my guess is their bark is worse than their bite.

I’ve covered myself and called the head of this networking group and he’s on my side, I have the emails so people can see how reasonable I’ve been... just chalking it up to a weird learning experience.

Anyway on a more positive note, my big SEO client sent over the signed contract so he’s officially locked in for the 12 months!

My best friend’s bachelor party is this weekend so I’m back in the NYC area so that’ll be a fun time.

On to bigger and better things but man what a weird few days!

 

[Andy Black]

Haha here’s a rundown I can think of - there will be friends at this bachelor party who work for:

Morgan Stanley, Goldman, JPmorgan Chase, Citigroup... it’s like an investment banking conference, we’re just missing Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank.

I still have a long way to go but the people who at first said “you’re throwing your life away” keep saying how jealous they are when they hear my schedule and the AZ lifestyle haha

Let me guess... jealous but not going to do anything about it?

You’re so lucky?

 

[Andy Black]

@MJ DeMarco - I figured you'd enjoy a quick breakdown of what the bachelor party was like with everyone asking about what I'm doing in AZ and with my business. Here's a quick summary of what happened (keep in mind that everyone is basically working for big investment banks in this group):

1. Everyone telling me how "jealous" they were that I could just drop everything and "try this thing out".

2. "Do a lot of people quit (XYZ Bank I used to work for)?"

3. "Wait, how did you learn coding and all of that stuff.. you didn't go back to school did you?"

4. "Starting a business is really risky" followed by some people throwing out stats like "95% fail in the first year"

5. LOTS of complaining about their jobs, which if I'm being honest, I find myself just not caring and not able to be empathetic to anymore. After seeing what the other side is like and the amazing stories of people on here overcoming the odds, I don't like hearing people complain about a problem but do nothing to fix it. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I've been busting my a$$ to improve every day and am working towards escaping a miserable situation that I wasn't happy in with my old jobs.

6. "Wait, you don't have any employees yet??"

7. "How much longer do you think you're going to try this thing out for?"

And my personal favorite and this brings me back to my glory days working for that last miserable investment banking job...

8. My best friend (whose bachelor party this was) got an email on Saturday from his Managing Director saying he needed to log on (they knew it was his bachelor party). He was obviously really drunk at this point so he ignored it and he came back to an angry email on Monday saying everyone was "disappointed" and that "a leader needs to step up and they're upset he didn't step up on Saturday".

Yeah, if you’re not going to do something about it, then stop complaining. If you are going to do something about it, then stop complaining.

Point 8) though... smh. If that doesn’t send him in on the war-path with an envelope in his pocket then I don’t know what will.

 

[GuitarManDan]

What an amazing thread! Great story. Well done for smashing it in the face.

I looked up Scottsdale online and I can see why people want to live there. I've been to Arizona before and had fond memories.

Can I ask, why did you go into web design? You've done great going from banking to web design, just curious as to why you chose that over everything.

Hey man - I had a few criteria and web design fit it perfectly:

-Freedom/flexibility to work anywhere with Internet connection
-Quick to startup (wouldn't have to wait years to be profitable)
-Overhead is basically non existent, don't have to burn through cash to set up the foundation

It was tough, I think every single new person on this forum has the same question "what do I choose". I read MJ's book, got excited and then it hit me... what the hell do I do now?

At the end of the day, you just have to make an educated decision and stick with it.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Just a quick update to my revenue tracker - the $500 per month client asked for a new additional page to her site, I've been charging $100 per hour and it ended up being 8.5 hours of work so just got paid $850 for today.

Got some fantastic news too about the fashion designer client! Basically they wrote back saying my new proposal sounded good and they were going to pitch it to the designer himself who's the ultimate decision maker (means I made it past the social media gatekeeper who was asking a lot of questions about what I'd be doing).

I saw a great opportunity and took it too - they're working on the link building themselves so I spent 1-2 hours today making a detailed Excel spreadsheet for them on which links (that they already have for free press) are best to target (nofollow/follow, domain authority rating, etc) and they were really thankful I did that work for free for them.

We'll see what happened but I'm really glad I put myself in a great spot to succeed with this deal!

2019 Revenue Tracker: $18,785 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

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

 

[MJ DeMarco]

May i ask, is this web business actually saving you time, freeing up time ..if so how ? or is it just another job.

Wow, what a shortsighted, narrow perspective.

 

[Fox]

Hey Andy,

To be completely transparent, at the moment I feel like I'm 1-2 clients away from being 100% maxed out for the amount of work I can personally do in a day (while running everything). At the same time, in the current state I feel like I'm not making enough yet where I'd feel comfortable cutting into my profits outsourcing.

My main goal is to just keep the sales pipeline going so that I basically force my hand to get creative and outsource to start building up a scalable business (instead of doing it all myself and going crazy).

So far I've been able to manage all of the juggling between different client projects (I'm sure it's been a little bit tougher just because of the learning curve as I'm working with my first SEO clients in the past few months) but all of the clients are very happy (both SEO and web design) so just need to keep going with that and make time / prioritize to build up my pipeline and keep moving leads along towards closing more deals.

I know how it's such a common beginner mistake to just put your head down and take a step back to see the big picture, so I'm working constantly... if not on a daily basis, definitely on a weekly basis to basically question every single part of my strategy / ways that I'm spending my time.

I feel like I still have so much to learn from everyone here on the forums, so I want to make sure I'm not stubbornly going down the wrong path when I could easily make some changes (such as outsourcing more of the minutiae of web design/SEO) to really scale things up.

I guess the point of all of my rambling would be given the situation that I'm in (almost at max capacity but able to handle it all myself and don't want to cut into my profits yet) do you think it's a viable strategy to just keep doing what I've been doing and focus on closing more larger deals to in effect force myself to start outsourcing and really build out a system?

You got a lot of options - lack of time is easier to solve than a lack of clients.

I would say keep the business model as you have it and try work in more and more monthly reoccurring income as you go.

Then at the same time look to start a new business based on the skills and cash flow you now have. What could you do or who could you partner with?

You’re a smart guy Dan and there are a lot of people or industries you can add tons of value to with the skills you now have. Keep your eyes open for an opportunity that could work for you outside of strictly web design.

I’d look to guys like MJ and G Alexander who used web design to make millions in non direct ways.

 

[Fox]

Well done Dan!

I like this web progress thread more and my own ha. You are flying it man and I know the figures are still "smaller" but you are consistently progressing and raising the bar. Give it a few years and there will be big gains made.

I got to get over to you and everyone else in Scottsdale next year.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

Well done. Just remember that money can’t be in two places at once. If it’s still in her bank account then it’s not in your bank account.

Hey Andy,

Completely agreed, but I figured once the check was in the mail (and I've worked with this client before and know they're really reliable) I'd add it in haha.

I was thinking about you on a great sales call that I had today for a potential new SEO client when you always told me to "show the client their bleeding neck".

One executive at this company told me how angry he was when he saw that financial companies with "1/5 of our assets under management were outranking us".

Will make a more detailed post about this later but had a solid call this morning and putting together a proposal now for how I can help them out with SEO and what my prices are.

 

[Andy Black]

Although I tried to get away from it, without a doubt, my response rate is so much higher when I do outreach to those in financial services because I speak their language and can easily develop rapport.

Hold on... why were you trying to get away from it? Stack your experiences on top of each other and create your high ground. What other web devs and SEOs have 5 years of financial services in their background? Seems like just the niche to focus on?

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

It's been a while since I posted so I wanted to provide a quick update of what's been going on with the business lately. As mentioned in some previous posts, my main goal is to be as transparent as possible and not just highlight the wins and the successful sales.

Here are a few notable updates from the past few weeks including both some challenges I ran into and some great opportunities:

Financial Services Firm Went With Another Company - This one was surprising but you never really know what's going to happen. Back in March I got in touch with the Owner of a financial services firm and he kept telling me that he's "super busy so even if he doesn't reply to keep pushing because he's interested". We had a call and he asked me to pitch him on SEO and a site redesign.

I quoted $4k-$7k for the site and then SEO plans ranging from around $950 to $2.5k per month after that. I would receive replies here and there but I tried to reach out in non spammy ways (calling or emailing maybe once every 10-20 days or so). He finally replied this week that they decided to go with another firm. I sent over a follow up email basically asking if there was any feedback he could give for what I could improve upon or could work on next time as I want to continue to learn and grow but he hasn't responded.

In the spirit of being completely transparent, what really really bothers me with this one is that the business owner specifically said he wanted to speak after I sent out the quote on a specific date in May (and I added it to my calendar). It was like a month out and I didn't know my best friend's bachelor party was that weekend (I believe the date was a Friday that I was flying) and I completely forgot about it.

Whether in my old corporate jobs world or in this new business now, those are just mistakes I never make so it really bothers me that I could've left a decent project on the table because I missed a meeting like that. Regardless, all I can do is look forward and make sure it doesn't happen again (updated my calendar system and added reminders and such) so that it won't be an issue again.

Old Web Design Client Still Pushing Off Work: One of my favorite clients that I worked with super early in my business wanted me to help out with some follow up work in the SEO space so I pitched him around $1,150 per month and he seemed ok with it but he kept pushing it back. His business has been really growing so he hired a few more people so he mentioned he'd have to push the project back even more since he wants to focus his efforts and investments into the new hires.

A Few New Proposals Out There:

Pitched a few new proposals for what would be my largest web design contract yet and for an ongoing SEO campaign for a few other potential clients:

1. From a referral from a past client, this guy who is semi retired is looking to create a pretty complex website, I quoted him approximately $17.5k for the whole thing (I'd be working with someone else who I know can handle the functionality side of things while I would do the design) so realistically if that one went through I'd probably make $9k-$10k after paying the other party.

2. Old web design client wants to start driving more traffic to the new site we built and he's in a super competitive market so I pitched helping with SEO for $1k per month and am waiting to see his feedback. He seems kinda hesitant to spend a decent amount of this so I mentioned we could simply start with a 3 month contract.

Still Waiting to Hear Back from a Few High-Value Contracts:

Here are a few contracts that I'm still waiting to hear back on as well and working to consistently follow up with:

1. Financial Services Business SEO Contract - Spoke with the Owner and all of the executives so I had all of the decision makers on the phone and answered all of their questions and then sent them over a quote and just waiting to hear back. This would be a decent-sized SEO project as the cheapest package I quoted was around $1,250 per month and the one I recommended was around $2,500 per month.

2. Divorce Lawyer SEO Contract - Owner responded to my cold outreach, had a great call and finally caught up with him after waiting a few weeks where he said he was still very interested but he was traveling. Going to work to follow up on that sometime soon but he gave me the "I'll reach out to you" line which makes me wary about it.

3. Wealth Mgmt Firm Marketing Contract - This was from earlier this year but this firm was really interested in hiring me as a marketing consultant to help with the creation of their new site, SEO, overall digital marketing strategy, etc and I quoted them $5k per month for a 3 month starting contract. I've been following up periodically and the Owner recently said they were still interested but the timing wasn't great so I've just been working to continue high-value follow ups and not be spammy.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Had a meeting with a former web design client today - super nice guy who's really great to work with and he said he wants to invest a little bit more into the site to drive some traffic in.

We agreed to move forward for a pretty small deal ($300 / month for 3 months) for some PPC work but I'm only going to be doing a few hours of work per month we decided on for that budget.

It's going to be more about testing the market / analyzing the data then really going all out with a full-blown PPC campaign.

Excited to learn some new things with this service that I haven't offered yet! I'll update the numbers below once the invoice is paid.

 

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[GuitarManDan]

it's cool to see you puncture through a saturated market like web design and SEO. What is your monthly profit at currently if you don't mind me asking?

Currently $5,000 a month in recurring - revenue adjustments are expected month to month. For example, I just closed the $300/month PPC deal and a $1,000/month SEO deal (still waiting on first payment before counting that).

That's just from SEO and one PPC client, the web design work one offs are still happening as well. I'm expecting to get paid the remaining 50% for a few web design projects that will be wrapped up this month.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Had a new client come in via a referral from a friend. I'm doing an in-depth SEO audit for his ecommerce business site for $325 and he went ahead and paid this morning. Really excited to provide some helpful insights and share ways he can improve his web presence.

Updated numbers below to account for this:

2019 Revenue Tracker: $31,955 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

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

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey All,

Quick update as my $500 and a $200 monthly client just paid for SEO services.

2019 Revenue Tracker: $32,955 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

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

 

[GuitarManDan]

If you don't mind me asking - around what % of the budget did you pay him? No worries at all if you'd rather not say, I'm just curious, because as someone who is capable of doing this advanced work, I'm trying to decide whether or not it's worth it to outsource. My guess is that it's worth it because, as you mentioned, it allows for the focus to be on the business. Do you see yourself getting to a point where you focus on sales / business and outsource all dev work?

I'd prefer not to reveal the exact specifics of it, but I can say that to be honest I had no idea how to break it down. Never did anything like that before so instead of going crazy or stressing out, I reached out to a few successful entrepreneurs I knew who have worked with contractors in situations like this before.

One made it really simple and said "you own the client relationship and this came up because of a referral to you, you're taking all of the risk from a legal perspective.. so give yourself X% and then split the rest 50/50 with the contractor" which is what I ended up doing.

I definitely am moving towards this model where I have contractors doing the actual work and I'm in more of a management / sales role with the business.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Not sure if you haven't mentioned it so far or if I just overlooked it, but how do you keep yourself on track with all the SEO changes happening?

What are your resources for learning new stuff and always be up to date?

Hi Pat,

The SEO course that I paid a decent amount for and was highly recommended comes with private access to a facebook group where the creator of the course (who still runs his own SEO biz and has for the past 10+ years) has weekly calls and answers any questions that you can post up.

It seems from my perspective like it's the same basic fundamentals that get the majority of the results, but obviously it's key to stay on top of trends and other tweaks that may come up.

 

[GuitarManDan]

Hey Everyone,

Quick update to the numbers as my $100 per month maintenance client just paid her invoice.

2019 Revenue Tracker: $54,779 Revenue / $100,000 Goal

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $3,133 Per Month / $10,000 Per Month Goal