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Moved to Scottsdale, Growing a Web Design Firm

GuitarManDan

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Hey All,

Wanted to provide a quick snapshot overview for the month of October. Since the business has been picking up, this was the first month that I've traveled (had a family member get married so I spent a few weeks away from Scottsdale for that) and even though the revenue took a bit of a dip, I still was able to produce decent results and balance traveling/seeing family with growing the business.

Rep Mgmt: $18.4k
SEO/Web Business: $8.5k

Total for Oct: $26.9k

Main goals for this month are to start getting a few salespeople on the team on a commission basis (as I just don't have the capacity to physically call up leads that I have (but I do have lists of leads ready to go). The plan is to identify someone that I trust who's based in either the US or Canada.
 
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GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

Here's a snapshot of how November played out with the businesses below. A few quick notable highlights of successes and challenges that came up:
  • Hired my first salesperson that wasn't a friend/someone I knew and he made his first sale already! Documenting the whole process so that it'll be easy to flip and train others as well as things pick up
  • Had a swing and a miss on the rep mgmt front, went after a new niche with outreach that worked well in the past for other industries, but the response rate has been abysmal after 2-3 weeks of running that. Pausing that campaign and going back to targeting industries I know convert well
  • For the seo/web business, my own site is ranking #1 overall for a lot of popular keywords even though I haven't put too much work into it so I've been getting a steady amount of leads between organic search results and referrals so there's a good chance the seo/web business picks up a bit this upcoming month
  • Even with traveling around for over half the month to visit family, still was able to have a pretty solid month, even if the revenue did dip down a bit, that was mostly due to a lack of consistent clients coming in the door from the outreach I did to the industry that didn't convert as well
Rep Mgmt: $14.5k
SEO/Web Business: $8.5k

Total for Nov: $23k
 

GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

Wanted to provide a quick breakdown for the month of December:
  • Found a way to make more money from my existing client base and had some crazy days this month where it showed me the real potential with this business (had one single day this month where I did $6k+ and another day where I did $5k+).
  • I'm still not even close to at capacity when I'm doing all the fulfillment myself so the entire focus going into 2023 is going to be around lead gen and getting more clients/prospects in the door.
  • This was the first month in a while I didn't have a one-off project with the seo/web business so the revenue on that side dipped off a bit, but the revenue for the rep mgmt business was up over 10k+ from last month
  • I know I mentioned it before, but things got so busy I didn't have a chance to do it, but I'm going to cross sell to my rep mgmt customers my web/seo services. A new rep mgmt client asked what my other business was and asked if I could help with SEO so seems like I'm just sitting on money if I don't try to cross sell.
What really made the difference this year was when I had that breakthrough to get highly targeted leads for the rep mgmt business and from there, it was steadily 20k+ months for the last 5 months of the year or so, so that needs to be the focus going forward into this next year.

I'm super grateful for the progress I've made and all of the help I've gotten from the community over the years, and I'm not sure if anyone else on here feels this way either but even with all of the progress I've made, I still feel like it isn't enough and that I'm dropping the ball all the time.

I think I'm my own biggest critic and know the potential this business has so I'm just going to harness that in a positive way and use it to motivate myself to take this thing to the next level.

There's nothing holding me back from 6 figure months, I just need to execute on it, learn from others, and keep going.

Rep Mgmt: $25.7k
SEO/Web Business: $5k

Total for Dec: $30.7k
 
Last edited:

BizyDad

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Hey Everyone,

Wanted to provide a quick breakdown for the month of December:
  • Found a way to make more money from my existing client base and had some crazy days this month where it showed me the real potential with this business (had one single day this month where I did $6k+ and another day where I did $5k+).
  • I'm still not even close to at capacity when I'm doing all the fulfillment myself so the entire focus going into 2023 is going to be around lead gen and getting more clients/prospects in the door.
  • This was the first month in a while I didn't have a one-off project with the seo/web business so the revenue on that side dipped off a bit, but the revenue for the rep mgmt business was up over 10k+ from last month
  • I know I mentioned it before, but things got so busy I didn't have a chance to do it, but I'm going to cross sell to my rep mgmt customers my web/seo services. A new rep mgmt client asked what my other business was and asked if I could help with SEO so seems like I'm just sitting on money if I don't try to cross sell.
What really made the difference this year was when I had that breakthrough to get highly targeted leads for the rep mgmt business and from there, it was steadily 20k+ months for the last 5 months of the year or so, so that needs to be the focus going forward into this next year.

I'm super grateful for the progress I've made and all of the help I've gotten from the community over the years, and I'm not sure if anyone else on here feels this way either but even with all of the progress I've made, I still feel like it isn't enough and that I'm dropping the ball all the time.

I think I'm my own biggest critic and know the potential this business has so I'm just going to harness that in a positive way and use it to motivate myself to take this thing to the next level.

There's nothing holding me back from 6 figure months, I just need to execute on it, learn from others, and keep going.

Rep Mgmt: $25.7k
SEO/Web Business: $5k

Total for Nov: $30.7k
With that kind of revenue, why aren't you hiring help? Wouldn't you be able to scale faster if your time was freed up and you had others "doing the work"?
 
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GuitarManDan

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With that kind of revenue, why aren't you hiring help? Wouldn't you be able to scale faster if your time was freed up and you had others "doing the work"?
Hey man! Hope you're doing well dude, it's been a while. I've gotten so efficient at the fulfillment side that believe it or not the more time consuming part / the major bottleneck is around spending time to do outreach/find new clients.

Completely agree with your point though around starting to outsource part of this, so I just reached out to a good friend I met through the forum last night who's amazing at PPC campaigns to see what the costs would look like for some paid ads (haven't tried that yet for this business).

It's been really helpful so far to calculate some stats I had the data for but never thought about or took the time to break down... for instance I now know with a pretty high amount of accuracy what the average value is for a new customer, my conversion rate for prospects, etc.

I'll keep everyone posted on here but I'm just looking into other methods too to focus on outsourcing more of the lead generation side of things.
 

BizyDad

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Hey man! Hope you're doing well dude, it's been a while. I've gotten so efficient at the fulfillment side that believe it or not the more time consuming part / the major bottleneck is around spending time to do outreach/find new clients.

Completely agree with your point though around starting to outsource part of this, so I just reached out to a good friend I met through the forum last night who's amazing at PPC campaigns to see what the costs would look like for some paid ads (haven't tried that yet for this business).

It's been really helpful so far to calculate some stats I had the data for but never thought about or took the time to break down... for instance I now know with a pretty high amount of accuracy what the average value is for a new customer, my conversion rate for prospects, etc.

I'll keep everyone posted on here but I'm just looking into other methods too to focus on outsourcing more of the lead generation side of things.

Sounds like by the end of next year you're going to pass my income. I gotta go now. I gotta get to work! Lol.
 

Bravesamurai

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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!

Hey, I’m looking to get into web design as well. Can you shed a bit more light on what Fox’s course is? Some links would be much appreciated!

I’m a total noob with web design and I think this is the direction I want to go into.
 
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AppMan

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Hey Everyone,

Wanted to provide a quick breakdown for the month of December:
  • Found a way to make more money from my existing client base and had some crazy days this month where it showed me the real potential with this business (had one single day this month where I did $6k+ and another day where I did $5k+).
  • I'm still not even close to at capacity when I'm doing all the fulfillment myself so the entire focus going into 2023 is going to be around lead gen and getting more clients/prospects in the door.
  • This was the first month in a while I didn't have a one-off project with the seo/web business so the revenue on that side dipped off a bit, but the revenue for the rep mgmt business was up over 10k+ from last month
  • I know I mentioned it before, but things got so busy I didn't have a chance to do it, but I'm going to cross sell to my rep mgmt customers my web/seo services. A new rep mgmt client asked what my other business was and asked if I could help with SEO so seems like I'm just sitting on money if I don't try to cross sell.
What really made the difference this year was when I had that breakthrough to get highly targeted leads for the rep mgmt business and from there, it was steadily 20k+ months for the last 5 months of the year or so, so that needs to be the focus going forward into this next year.

I'm super grateful for the progress I've made and all of the help I've gotten from the community over the years, and I'm not sure if anyone else on here feels this way either but even with all of the progress I've made, I still feel like it isn't enough and that I'm dropping the ball all the time.

I think I'm my own biggest critic and know the potential this business has so I'm just going to harness that in a positive way and use it to motivate myself to take this thing to the next level.

There's nothing holding me back from 6 figure months, I just need to execute on it, learn from others, and keep going.

Rep Mgmt: $25.7k
SEO/Web Business: $5k

Total for Nov: $30.7k
Great progress, feel jealous of you, but I understand you have worked very hard for a couple of years.
I think you are in the stage when you should hire more people to be able to scale better.
 

GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

Wanted to share a quick update for the month of January with some high-level updates of what I've been up to:
  • Started cross selling and sold a few rep mgmt clients some SEO recurring services and also completed a higher-paying website project this month so that's why the seo/web business numbers were higher than usual
  • Started running ads and am paying one of my good friends from the forum to handle that for me, so far we've closed a handful of clients and it's very encouraging the results we have been getting
  • Getting to the point now capacity wise where I can't do all of this myself so looking into options of getting salespeople on board for the rep mgmt business, just need to figure out the best way to compensate those individuals
Rep Mgmt: $19.7k
SEO/Web Business: $14.2k

Total for Jan: $33.9k
 
Last edited:

GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

Here's a quick update for the month of February:
  • In addition to some of my other outreach methods that have become more automated, I started running ads for the first time. Even with the first iterations of ads, the ROI was fantastic so now I will add that in as a consistent part of my lead gen
  • Picked up a few new SEO monthly recurring clients
  • Decided to make another big move with my location and move back to the northeast (specifically going to get a place in Manhattan to rent for a year or two). I was flying back and forth so much the last few years from Scottsdale for weddings, holidays, etc it just seemed to not make as much sense (probably flew back and forth 12-14 times in the last two years). Instead, I'd rather have my main location be near family and when the weather gets too cold, I can come stay in Scottsdale for a few months out of the year. It's been a fun 5 years in Scottsdale but it just feels like I'm ready to mix things up and I've never actually lived in NYC when I worked there. I realized most of the reasons I didn't like NYC had to do almost entirely with the toxic work culture which I won't have to deal with since I'll still be working for myself out there. The cool thing is if I decide it's not for me, I could always move to another spot but it will be fun to put myself in a new environment, meet new people, etc.
With the rep mgmt business, I know it wildly fails the commandment of control, but the cash flow has been so solid and I'm just doing all I can to make hay while the sun is still shining. I'm fully aware it could all get taken away in a snap, but I do have contingency plans in place just in case. The reason I'm still running the seo/web business is the solid consistent monthly cashflow, and the fact that I've worked with 80-100 clients for the rep mgmt business means I will still have those relationships and could sell some of them seo/web services.

For now, I'm just going to keep the focus on being as ambitious as possible with the business and will keep you all posted on how next month goes!

Rep Mgmt: $24.9k
SEO/Web Business: $9.3k

Total for Jan: $34.2k
 
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KiwiEC

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Very cool thread, it was a pleasure to read your progression over the years. I bookmarked it and I look forward to get your next update!

May I ask you some details about the tools you used? For example I understood you started web design on WordPress. Did you use a specific builder through it like Divi or Elementor? Did you "just" purchase a theme and improve it?

Did you consider alternatives? Especially WebFlow but also Squarespace or Wix?

As your business is growing, did you use additional tools not directly related to web design? For example I'm thinking of Zapier for automating some part of your business or your customer's websites. Maybe a CRM to track all those leads? Etc, etc.

I started a couple of weeks ago on WordPress. There is so much potential in my region with many small companies needing a website. I'm still learning but I made a lot of progress and my first website is almost ready (I do that one for free, it's a training and a way to gain visibility). Your thread is really motivating, thanks again for sharing. :D
 

GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

Lots of changes on my side here but I ended up having my best month ever by a long shot so that was great to see the continual growth with the businesses. Here's a quick bullet point summary of what's been going on / changes that are happening and then the monthly totals for this month:
  • Landed an extremely large client for the rep mgmt business which explains the dramatic jump in revenue, that one client alone accounted for about 18k in revenue this month and they reached out asking if they could hire me full time (had to politely push back and mention other clients and proposed that they pay me a fixed amount each month, could be a new model to investigate for adding in recurring revenue to this business). I'd estimate this business spends at least 500k-1 mil a month on marketing so whatever they pay me is nothing for them
  • Decided to move from AZ, it's been a fun 5 years but I just felt like I was getting complacent and needed to mix things up. With how much I'd been flying back to the east coast, and as family gets older I decided it would be a good fit to move to that area. I never actually lived in NYC in my Wall Street days (since I couldn't afford it) so I'm going to find a good spot in Manhattan and am excited to meet some new people and get a bit of a fresh start. The really encouraging thing is that I basically spent the entire month moving and doing all of the logistics that come with a cross country move and I still was able to have such a great month business wise.
  • Moving forward, I want to place a much larger emphasis on doing outreach to large companies instead of trying to get some business here and there from smaller businesses, so I have some items in the works for the best ways to prospect that way to target the larger firms
March Totals:

Rep Mgmt: $45.2k
SEO/Web Business: $9k

Total for Jan: $54.2k
 

BizyDad

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Hey Everyone,

Lots of changes on my side here but I ended up having my best month ever by a long shot so that was great to see the continual growth with the businesses. Here's a quick bullet point summary of what's been going on / changes that are happening and then the monthly totals for this month:
  • Landed an extremely large client for the rep mgmt business which explains the dramatic jump in revenue, that one client alone accounted for about 18k in revenue this month and they reached out asking if they could hire me full time (had to politely push back and mention other clients and proposed that they pay me a fixed amount each month, could be a new model to investigate for adding in recurring revenue to this business). I'd estimate this business spends at least 500k-1 mil a month on marketing so whatever they pay me is nothing for them
  • Decided to move from AZ, it's been a fun 5 years but I just felt like I was getting complacent and needed to mix things up. With how much I'd been flying back to the east coast, and as family gets older I decided it would be a good fit to move to that area. I never actually lived in NYC in my Wall Street days (since I couldn't afford it) so I'm going to find a good spot in Manhattan and am excited to meet some new people and get a bit of a fresh start. The really encouraging thing is that I basically spent the entire month moving and doing all of the logistics that come with a cross country move and I still was able to have such a great month business wise.
  • Moving forward, I want to place a much larger emphasis on doing outreach to large companies instead of trying to get some business here and there from smaller businesses, so I have some items in the works for the best ways to prospect that way to target the larger firms
March Totals:

Rep Mgmt: $45.2k
SEO/Web Business: $9k

Total for Jan: $54.2k
After 20 pages, I'm guessing it's time to give this thread a new title!:rofl:

Or start fresh?

Congrats dude. Happy for you!
 
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Dami-B

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Hey Everyone,

Lots of changes on my side here but I ended up having my best month ever by a long shot so that was great to see the continual growth with the businesses. Here's a quick bullet point summary of what's been going on / changes that are happening and then the monthly totals for this month:
  • Landed an extremely large client for the rep mgmt business which explains the dramatic jump in revenue, that one client alone accounted for about 18k in revenue this month and they reached out asking if they could hire me full time (had to politely push back and mention other clients and proposed that they pay me a fixed amount each month, could be a new model to investigate for adding in recurring revenue to this business). I'd estimate this business spends at least 500k-1 mil a month on marketing so whatever they pay me is nothing for them
  • Decided to move from AZ, it's been a fun 5 years but I just felt like I was getting complacent and needed to mix things up. With how much I'd been flying back to the east coast, and as family gets older I decided it would be a good fit to move to that area. I never actually lived in NYC in my Wall Street days (since I couldn't afford it) so I'm going to find a good spot in Manhattan and am excited to meet some new people and get a bit of a fresh start. The really encouraging thing is that I basically spent the entire month moving and doing all of the logistics that come with a cross country move and I still was able to have such a great month business wise.
  • Moving forward, I want to place a much larger emphasis on doing outreach to large companies instead of trying to get some business here and there from smaller businesses, so I have some items in the works for the best ways to prospect that way to target the larger firms
March Totals:

Rep Mgmt: $45.2k
SEO/Web Business: $9k

Total for Jan: $54.2k
Big congratulations @GuitarManDan I'm sure you're tired of hearing about it but your thread has inspired me as a lot of others as well, glad you kicked off with @Fox and you've taken what you learnt to the next level, I'm currently building a solid base with no-code development and i sense a similar energy in my area, I know it could all go away in a second but just riding the positive demand wave right now and saving as much as I can while keeping my antennas alert for the next opportunities. All the best and God bless!
 

Bigguns50

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Great update! There are a lot of big businesses in Manhattan. I would expect you can tap some of those. Congrats on the move and a record month!
 
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