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Moved to Scottsdale, Growing a Web Design Firm

GravyBoat

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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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Hey Everyone,

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

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

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

Updated numbers below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.
 

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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.

Hey man,

Really love this post and you're exactly right. The forum has been an amazing resource for no BS and honest legal advice. I don't trust the lawyers I've been speaking with as of course they want to convince me to proceed, but it seems like real people who have been through this all say steer clear and just move on.

The fact that my friend told me he may be having money issues is just the final nail in the coffin for this too. My lawyer mentioned that if he doesn't have any assets to collect, I'm going to rack up insane legal bills and never see any money back.

The most important thing is just my own mental health with this. I don't want to be brought down to his levels of toxicity and go through this miserable and stressful process. There would be days when we were sending nasty emails back and forth that I was so stressed I couldn't focus on anything else - not great for my business to get into the weeds again for only $6.4k.

Will check out that video and I have pitched a few clients for larger monthly budgets which would free up a lot of my resources and time and allow me to focus more of my efforts on my next business that can scale easier.
 
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GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

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

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

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

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

GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

Quick update to the numbers below - I've been getting a lot of lower-end referrals for jobs that wouldn't make too much sense to take on now, so instead of just turning them away I've been working to refer them out to people I know who are starting off.

One networking contact came to me with a $1k job and I sent it to someone in a Facebook group I'm in and he provided me with a 10% referral fee so he just paid me $100 when the deal closed. I figure it's a win-win - people in the earlier stages or looking for work get paid projects and I turn those leads into some kind of revenue for myself, even if it's not too much.

2020 Revenue Tracker: $21,299.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

GuitarManDan

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Hey All,

Feels weird to be posting about business updates with all of the coronavirus craziness that's happening, obviously for anyone following my story they know I'm from the NYC area and lived there my whole life before moving to Scottsdale. Seems like every friend/family member I have back home knows multiple people with the coronavirus. Thankfully my family is ok for now, but I'm still worried as a lot of them are 60+.

Even heard stories of a few people I graduated college with, who didn't just get the virus in NY, but died from it (both completely healthy late 20s athletes). Seems a bit different here in AZ, as I still haven't heard of anyone here that I know with it.

Anyway, the show must go on so I wanted to share a few updates on my side. Work has been a good outlet to distract myself from all of this insanity that's happening:

  • Quick Free Work Leads to Multiple Prospects - Random marketing company reached out to me and the Founders wanted to have a call with me. They do basically everything in marketing except web+SEO. They asked if I could give them a quote to help a financial services client they had (I told them my background in it). They said multiple people quoted them high prices and literally all they needed was to switch a YouTube video on his homepage for another YT video. I didn't charge and did it in a few minutes and they were SO thankful. They now are telling their financial clients about my background and one in particular said he needs to meet me and we have a call scheduled Monday to discuss potential web design/SEO projects. They then asked for one more edit on his site and asked me to bill them this time. It only took an hour and I billed at $100/hr, so adding in that extra small amount of revenue below.
  • Looking Ahead to Revenue Projections - Despite all of the craziness, March was a solid month where I did around $9,500 or so. My financial services client I closed a few months ago's website is basically finished just wrapping up last minute things so with my recurring rev + the 50% remaining on that, April looks to be at least $8,000 (if I don't close any other deals). Still pushing forward and working to keep scaling things up.
2020 Revenue Tracker: $21,399.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

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Hey Everyone,

May have an SEO client who wants to put things on pause until the coronavirus craziness calms down. They were supposed to pay $1500 today and I sent them the invoice and they said they would pay this month but may have to put things on pause depending on if/when they get government relief, crazy times out there. They still haven't paid so not sure how I'm going to handle that if they decide not to. I'll run it by some people that I know I can bounce off client challenges like this before responding back via email.

Good news is went live with a client site this afternoon (collected the remaining $3,500 on that one) plus got another $333 for a monthly payment from an old website I did where we agreed on a payment plan. Updating the numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $25,232.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

GuitarManDan

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Hey All,

Still haven't received payment from the one client who is thinking of putting things on pause, trying to decide how to handle that. In the meantime, the site is all up and running for the financial services client who paid recently and they're really happy with how it turned out. Even said that they ran it by some clients and they all love it so that's great!

Going live with client sites like that is a little nerve wracking for the larger businesses but I'm glad it all went well.

My remaining monthly clients paid today (and the other one under contract pays tomorrow) so I'm going to update the numbers below (one client is for $1k per month the other is $1.5k so adding that in now):

Looks I'll survive April still doing decent (collected $6.5k so far, will be a minimum of $8k if the other client on the fence decides to pay). I'm going to just assume the one on the fence won't pay and will start getting aggressive for the rest of the month to bring on new clients now that I have that additional capacity. On a side note, hope everyone and their families are staying safe out there with everything going on.

2020 Revenue Tracker: $27,732.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

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Hey Everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great to hear that Dan.
 

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Hey Everyone,

Just a quick update - a $200/month client paid today so updating the numbers below. I'll be sure to post a longer update about what's been going on with my current pipeline for SEO and web clients!

2020 Revenue Tracker: $29,432.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

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Hey Everyone,

A client from a few years ago needed some hourly work on his site so he just paid $300 for a few hours of maintenance work - updating the numbers below.

A few other quick updates:
  • Thanks to some input from some of the guys on a mastermind group that I joined after the Summit, found a way to completely eliminate the main bottleneck in my SEO outreach process so I'm building out a list of leads now in various cities that fit my new criteria.
  • Had a great call with someone I met at the Summit as he may need help with SEO for his business. We'll see what happens but it would be a great fit and I know working together we'd get some great results.. always good to work with other fastlaners too!
  • Took a pretty big chance with one of my current SEO clients, as I found a critical issue with his site that the last company did (basically, the entire thing was duplicate content and was ripped off). I was concerned he may have just given up on SEO, but instead he was super receptive and ended it saying something like "you came very highly recommended and not I can see why" so that was a huge relief to build that trust with this client!

2020 Revenue Tracker: $29,732.33 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

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Do you think there's enough business out there to hire web dev's or sales reps?
 

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Do you think there's enough business out there to hire web dev's or sales reps?

Hey man,

Good question, for full time I'm not even considering that at the moment but for part time / commission positions, definitely something I'm considering.

If the costs were more variable it would definitely make sense and now with my business going the way it's been, I need to keep thinking about efficiency and how to make sure I'm not reducing my business growth because I'm doing too much fo the work myself.

Currently in discussion with a friend who runs a PPC company to help me with some digital ads to bring in more SEO leads. Will post up more about that later!
 
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Currently in discussion with a friend who runs a PPC company to help me with some digital ads to bring in more SEO leads. Will post up more about that later!

What if you were to set something up so your friend's PPC customers get a free SEO Report with your branding all over it?
 

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What if you were to set something up so your friend's PPC customers get a free SEO Report with your branding all over it?

Hey man - that's a great idea. Right now I'm working on industry-specific SEO landing pages to add to my site so that once I start running ads it'll go directly to those which should help increase conversion rates (vs. just sending them to a general SEO or contact page).

I've been able to create great relationships with the clients I've worked with in the past and am still working with, but I need to step up my game to work with other digital marketing agencies in the area.
 

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Hey Everyone,

Had two automatic payments go through today - one for $1500/month for SEO and one for $333 for a website that I completed a few months back (we agreed on a monthly payment plan) - updating the numbers below:

2020 Revenue Tracker: $31,265.66 Revenue / $150,000 Goal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Hey All,

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

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

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

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

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

I've been in sales for quite some time and starting to see a big shift in traditional outreach.


If I had this course 4 years ago, It would have made all the difference. I have no trouble at all getting in front of folks now. Also, I'm starting to think it's more relevant than ever to build a following on LinkedIn and grow a supportive community around what you're doing - a good example is this guy below that uses WebFlow heavily. He mentioned a couple of years ago that he's at 1M rev now, which is awesome.

 

GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

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

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

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

Updating the numbers below:

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

Monthly Recurring Revenue: $5,533 Per Month / $15,000 Per Month Goal
 
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MJ DeMarco

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$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.
 

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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.

Thanks MJ! Even though I've been living in AZ for about 2 and a half years now, still feels like everything I buy is on sale being used to those ridiculous NYC prices haha
 
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GuitarManDan

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Hey Everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

Updating the numbers below:

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

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

GuitarManDan

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Hey All,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will be keeping you in thoughts Dan and hoping this recovery is a smooth and easy as possible!

You are a beast!

This thread is absolutely one of the best of the best! Setting yourself up for tremendous success by using challenges and learning from every lesson.
 
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@GuitarManDan I wish you a fast recovery.

@all This is what success looks like. Over 2 years of grinding.
It's hard to fail if you keep working and impoving at one thing and it's hard to succeed if you keep quitting after 4-12 weeks because your project hasn't gotten any traction yet.
 

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