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Quitting my 80k job, moving out of state to start a consulting business from nothing

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Claude Roy

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Sunday, I made the decision to quit my job in Florida that I'm miserable as a software developer and bet everything on myself to start a consulting business. Turning my should into a must.

I put the notice in that I'm leaving at my apartment on Monday so I'm moving out on June 28. I haven't given my notice at work, I'll do it 4 weeks before moving out. I had a few States that I considered moving, all of them being:

Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio, and Kansas.

I've made a chart of all my important criteria.
Close to FL?
Weather
Cost of Living
Safety
Taxes
Young population
Entrepreneur Community
Ease of travel to Quebec (Where I'm from)
Vegan Community

I now narrowed it down to either Mississippi or Arizona. I have a friend who lives in MS. I don't know anyone from Arizona, but it's the state that I was hesitated to move first between FL and AZ

I bought the course Consulting Accelerator by Sam Ovens and I've been doing it, taking notes every day when I'm coming back from work.

I've started a morning routine which looks like this:
Wake up at 5:30 am
Smile
Make bed
Cold shower - 1 minute
Visualization of who I'm committed to being - 10 minutes
Meditation - 10 minutes

Before going to bed, I also started a routine:
Hot shower - 2,3 minutes
Gratitude meditation - 10 minutes
Going to bed at 10pm

I've been feeling outstanding since I took my decision and actually became a lot more productive at work since I know it's almost over.

I'll make an update on this thread every Wednesday and Sunday.

The new journey has just begun, the war is on!
 
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Jeff Noel

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Great job !

One full minute of cold shower probably seems awefully long.
I would do that when living at the dorms... simply because it'd take forever for water to warm up.
 

NMdad

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Can you cover your living expenses while you work on getting clients? Because if it takes you longer than you'd planned to get clients, you'll be desperate for ANY client--and that desperation will seep its way into your actions & conversations with them & turn them away.
 
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jcvlds

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What kind of consulting are you going to be specializing in? For who?


Also, just out of curiosity, what's up with these very short showers? :p I can't seem to take less than 10 minutes showering by fully shampooing and soaping myself. Heh
 

Claude Roy

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Can you cover your living expenses while you work on getting clients? Because if it takes you longer than you'd planned to get clients, you'll be desperate for ANY client--and that desperation will seep its way into your actions & conversations with them & turn them away.

Yes, I have 35k saved and 50k cad so I won't be in desperation mode. Also like I think I said, my monthly expenses will be under 1.6k so that's not bad at all.

So now I picked my niche, I'm going to help therapists get more clients with digital marketing/optimizing their website for clients acquisition.

I've kept being in a great state and taking a lot of action and not even wanting to relax or anything like that, I'm really focused and working on optimizing my offers and finding potential clients and looking at what their problems are. I know that the offer is not going to be perfect yet, but I'm going to get started, getting feedback from the market.

I've kept my morning routine/evening routine without any problem, being so excited to work on my stuff even though I got to go to work tomorrow at my job, I know it's going to be all over soon and I've actually been so much more productive at work, got so many more things done. For my business, I know it's going to be difficult, but I'm just so much happier working on skills that are going to serve me long term and help me the person that I want to become in order to make the impact that I want that I would be willing to earn the bare minimum to cover my expenses for a year or more but knowing I'm getting closer to where I want to go.

So starting tomorrow, I'm making a sheet for 7 days and allocate where my time goes every 30 minute so I can look back after that and remove anything that doesn't help me to move towards my goals and the training for next week is all about mindset and I've heard a lot of people saying that it's super powerful and one of the most valuable week so I'm super excited.

Wishing everyone an outstanding week!
 

NMdad

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Something to keep in mind with therapists: Since their clients are semi-long-term, they don't necessarily need a constant flow of clients like a roofer or plumber would.

That said, sole practitioner therapists--especially those who recently started their practice--do need clients. However, once they fill their calendar, they may not need your lead-gen services.

Group practices might have a bigger need for ongoing lead-gen.
 
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BLIM

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Sunday, I made the decision to quit my job in Florida that I'm miserable as a software developer and bet everything on myself to start a consulting business. Turning my should into a must.

I put the notice in that I'm leaving at my apartment on Monday so I'm moving out on June 28. I haven't given my notice at work, I'll do it 4 weeks before moving out. I had a few States that I considered moving, all of them being:

Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio, and Kansas.

I've made a chart of all my important criteria.
Close to FL?
Weather
Cost of Living
Safety
Taxes
Young population
Entrepreneur Community
Ease of travel to Quebec (Where I'm from)
Vegan Community

I now narrowed it down to either Mississippi or Arizona. I have a friend who lives in MS. I don't know anyone from Arizona, but it's the state that I was hesitated to move first between FL and AZ

I bought the course Consulting Accelerator by Sam Ovens and I've been doing it, taking notes every day when I'm coming back from work.

I've started a morning routine which looks like this:
Wake up at 5:30 am
Smile
Make bed
Cold shower - 1 minute
Visualization of who I'm committed to being - 10 minutes
Meditation - 10 minutes

Before going to bed, I also started a routine:
Hot shower - 2,3 minutes
Gratitude meditation - 10 minutes
Going to bed at 10pm

I've been feeling outstanding since I took my decision and actually became a lot more productive at work since I know it's almost over.

I'll make an update on this thread every Wednesday and Sunday.

The new journey has just begun, the war is on!
Please use WADM to compare your result
 

Private Witt

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What kind of consulting are you going to be specializing in? For who?


Also, just out of curiosity, what's up with these very short showers? :p I can't seem to take less than 10 minutes showering by fully shampooing and soaping myself. Heh

Im with you, I wake up at 4 am every day for my $ grind and need a minimum of ten minutes to get it done (and Im full Heisenberg bald so no shampooing situation).

Good luck with the move OP and looking forward to hearing about your progress!
 

Private Witt

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Also like I think I said, my monthly expenses will be under 1.6k so that's not bad at all.

That is beyond epic. My personal nut in Seattle is almost 4k a month and really has caused a problem with my progress, but is the place to be for what Im doing.
 
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salasben19

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Sunday, I made the decision to quit my job in Florida that I'm miserable as a software developer and bet everything on myself to start a consulting business. Turning my should into a must.

I put the notice in that I'm leaving at my apartment on Monday so I'm moving out on June 28. I haven't given my notice at work, I'll do it 4 weeks before moving out. I had a few States that I considered moving, all of them being:

Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio, and Kansas.

I've made a chart of all my important criteria.
Close to FL?
Weather
Cost of Living
Safety
Taxes
Young population
Entrepreneur Community
Ease of travel to Quebec (Where I'm from)
Vegan Community

I now narrowed it down to either Mississippi or Arizona. I have a friend who lives in MS. I don't know anyone from Arizona, but it's the state that I was hesitated to move first between FL and AZ

I bought the course Consulting Accelerator by Sam Ovens and I've been doing it, taking notes every day when I'm coming back from work.

I've started a morning routine which looks like this:
Wake up at 5:30 am
Smile
Make bed
Cold shower - 1 minute
Visualization of who I'm committed to being - 10 minutes
Meditation - 10 minutes

Before going to bed, I also started a routine:
Hot shower - 2,3 minutes
Gratitude meditation - 10 minutes
Going to bed at 10pm

I've been feeling outstanding since I took my decision and actually became a lot more productive at work since I know it's almost over.

I'll make an update on this thread every Wednesday and Sunday.

The new journey has just begun, the war is on!
Definitely Arizona if those are your options! Please let me know if I can help or add value. I wish you the best. If your on this forum than chances are you know alot of people in Arizona area.
 

Cvince

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Have you tried cold-call businesses over the phone to get a feel for it yet?
 

William H

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Sunday, I made the decision to quit my job in Florida that I'm miserable as a software developer and bet everything on myself to start a consulting business. Turning my should into a must.

I put the notice in that I'm leaving at my apartment on Monday so I'm moving out on June 28. I haven't given my notice at work, I'll do it 4 weeks before moving out. I had a few States that I considered moving, all of them being:

Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio, and Kansas.

I've made a chart of all my important criteria.
Close to FL?
Weather
Cost of Living
Safety
Taxes
Young population
Entrepreneur Community
Ease of travel to Quebec (Where I'm from)
Vegan Community

I now narrowed it down to either Mississippi or Arizona. I have a friend who lives in MS. I don't know anyone from Arizona, but it's the state that I was hesitated to move first between FL and AZ

I bought the course Consulting Accelerator by Sam Ovens and I've been doing it, taking notes every day when I'm coming back from work.

I've started a morning routine which looks like this:
Wake up at 5:30 am
Smile
Make bed
Cold shower - 1 minute
Visualization of who I'm committed to being - 10 minutes
Meditation - 10 minutes

Before going to bed, I also started a routine:
Hot shower - 2,3 minutes
Gratitude meditation - 10 minutes
Going to bed at 10pm

I've been feeling outstanding since I took my decision and actually became a lot more productive at work since I know it's almost over.

I'll make an update on this thread every Wednesday and Sunday.

The new journey has just begun, the war is on!

Nashville is a pretty cool place as well. I used to live there a couple of years ago before the big "boom" happened. The vegan lifestyle is there, but more importantly it is evolving into something phenomenal. You would fit right in. Don't exclude them. And if you are consulting, have you thought about Puerto Rico to take advantage of the tax structures.
 
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Andy Daniels

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I'm going to help therapists get more clients with digital marketing/optimizing their website for clients acquisition

In the beginning it's all about building your network. Show the value first and follow it up with paid services once you've earned their trust.

Best of luck!
 

Claude Roy

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I'm on week 2 of the training on how to build your consulting business and it's all about mindset. The guys say that it's 80% psychology and 20% tactics. I've learned a lot of interesting stuff on how it's most about managing the downside than it is the upside. So I'm making it more easy for myself to make the best decision automatically be removing all the bad things. For example, I had some apps on my phone that could be time wasting a little bit so I removed almost everything so I'm not tempted by my phone, deleted FB from there definitely. We also created a definition of the person that we are now and the person that we need to become to achieve our vision. I've kept my morning and evening routine going on strong, I took my cold showers from 60 seconds to 2 minutes to develop even more disciplined on that side. I've sent some cold emails to businesses to see directly from them if they would need help as I saw some people suggested here, I'm going to see how it goes and how the market adjust as next week it's the sales training and all that cool stuff. I'm also learning in the meanwhile how to optimize a website for sales and stuff like that so I could learn things that could help me add value to client's website. That's it for now, keep you posted on Sunday! Have an outstanding week!
 
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NMdad

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I'm on week 2 of the training on how to build your consulting business and it's all about mindset.
OK, so week 2--how many prospects have you contacted?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely concerned. You quit a decent-paying job to do consulting--without having any clients. Even though you have some savings, you definitely won't want to burn through that--and without paying clients, you WILL burn through your savings.

How long do you want it to take? What can you do--today--to move closer to your goal? How much time are you spending each day prospecting for clients?
 

Guest921Y

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I can vouch for @NMdad being concerned and not being snarky. He is an awesome and helpful forum member!
 
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NMdad

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Quick backstory: I started consulting on the side when I had a day job. Since I had no idea what I was doing, it took a while to get clients--like 5-6 months. I gradually got more clients & work, so that I was making more part-time than I made at my day job--that took about 10-12 months. When my wife saw I was CONSISTENTLY making more, month after month, consulting part-time, she convinced me to transition from the day job to full-time consulting (I really liked the steady day-job paycheck--besides, we had a mortgage & 2 small kids).

Note that I didn't just quit the day job cold turkey. I phased out the day job over 3 months (30 hours/week, then 20 hours/week, then 10 hours/week) while building the consulting pipeline.

But it all hinged on having paying clients. Without taking action to get paying clients & more work per client, there wouldn't have been any cash to pay bills.

You can do this. But don't burn time & money by action faking (e.g., polishing your website--unless you're selling web design, reading about mindset, etc.). Call & meet with prospects every day--you'll learn a sh*t ton about your market, what they care about, how to talk to them, and how to help them.
 

Claude Roy

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OK, so week 2--how many prospects have you contacted?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely concerned. You quit a decent-paying job to do consulting--without having any clients. Even though you have some savings, you definitely won't want to burn through that--and without paying clients, you WILL burn through your savings.

How long do you want it to take? What can you do--today--to move closer to your goal? How much time are you spending each day prospecting for clients?

@NMdad Thanks for your great advice and for caring like that, I really appreciate it. I made of list of 50 people that I'm going to call during lunchtime at work since I still have my 9-5 until June 28. I'm not full time yet but I can make those calls when I'm at work still.

In the mindset training, there was a lot of exercise about like rebuilding your whole identity because the person that I am now is not the person who's going to achieve all my goals so I finished all of that. Each morning and before bed now, I read this new identity journal, with some affirmations as well to keep my mind headed towards the person that I'm becoming.

I noticed that in my 9-5, I was like 5 times more productive because I know now that how you do one thing is how you do everything. I was a lot more decisive there as well and took extra work when I could have chilled out but given really my 100% and challenging ideas that I thought were dumb which I never do usually because I really don't care about their business.

I finished all of the mindset training before Friday so I could work on learning more about the market during the weekend and refine my offer. I joined some FB groups of therapists as well as looked at subreddits to see if my offer would be good. Also like I said, I made a list of 50 people that I'm going to call this week at lunchtime to see how my offer resonates with them.

The only thing that went bad this week was that on Saturday, I slept in and totally skipped my morning routine so that threw me off for almost 5-6 hours, I felt like crap because I was procrastinating and I know I shouldn't do that but I caught myself and got out of that step and forced myself to do my 2h bike ride since I'm training for Ironman Florida in November. I didn't feel like it at all but after I kicked back in full gear and went back at it.

So this week, it's all about sales so I'm excited about that and also making my calls to people and seeing how it goes at my job.

Have an outstanding week guys.
 

Claude Roy

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This week has been going really well so far. I've stuck to my discipline of waking up at 5:30, cold shower for 2 minutes, visualizing for 10 minutes, meditating 20 minutes and then starting to work. Also, I start at 9:35 my evening routine to go to bed at 10 so I kept that in check.

Week 3 is sales week, I just finished all the training and I now have to adapt the sales script to my niche so I'm going to do that. I haven't made the phone call at work I was too anxious and not sure of myself enough honestly. The script is so powerful though. I'll adapt it and start calling those people even though I get 50 nos, I'll get some feedback and just getting over my fear will be a good thing.

I also got myself a health insurance plan since I'll be off my benefits when I leave my job. I also looked at the city that I'm aimed to go to. It's going to be on the coast of Mississippi, either Gulfport, Biloxi or Ocean Springs.

Work has been great, I've been still really disciplined there even if I don't like the job, I give my 100% and get a lot more done.

I started to look for moving boxes also since I'll need to pack a few things for my move. I got rid of a lot of stuff and gave it all to goodwill so that'll be less stuff to bring.

So my goal for the rest of this week is to call those 50 people, start week 4 training which is about finding prospects, practice the adjusted sales script with people on the FB group and get moving boxes.

Have an outstanding night!
 
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stavedeve

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Can you cover your living expenses while you work on getting clients? Because if it takes you longer than you'd planned to get clients, you'll be desperate for ANY client--and that desperation will seep its way into your actions & conversations with them & turn them away.
I just had this happen for an internal job transfer I was going after. True words. The hiring manager told me to "cool it."
 

loop101

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Shouldn't you move to wherever has the most potential customers with the least potential competitors? If you can choose where you live, and it matters where you live, it seems like that should be optimized. If you are web-based, maybe live in the Central US so you can work with East and West Coast clients most easily.
 

Real Deal Denver

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Quick backstory: I started consulting on the side when I had a day job. Since I had no idea what I was doing, it took a while to get clients--like 5-6 months. I gradually got more clients & work, so that I was making more part-time than I made at my day job--that took about 10-12 months. When my wife saw I was CONSISTENTLY making more, month after month, consulting part-time, she convinced me to transition from the day job to full-time consulting (I really liked the steady day-job paycheck--besides, we had a mortgage & 2 small kids).

Note that I didn't just quit the day job cold turkey. I phased out the day job over 3 months (30 hours/week, then 20 hours/week, then 10 hours/week) while building the consulting pipeline.

But it all hinged on having paying clients. Without taking action to get paying clients & more work per client, there wouldn't have been any cash to pay bills.

You can do this. But don't burn time & money by action faking (e.g., polishing your website--unless you're selling web design, reading about mindset, etc.). Call & meet with prospects every day--you'll learn a sh*t ton about your market, what they care about, how to talk to them, and how to help them.

^^^----- Great advice there.

What I have gathered so far is that there are a lot of cold showers, cold emails, and cold calling.

Not a solid business plan. I hope he takes your words to heart.

And a vegan community is important? I didn't know salad lovers conferred with each other. I'm a salad lover myself. I may have missed the boat on joining that group. Sounds exciting... not.
 
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Valhalla

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Good stuff, just don't burn yourself out, the intensity of posts like this always scare the shit out of me.
 

ZeroTo100

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Hey Man,

Good luck with making this pivot - you have a good community here for support.

Couple of things I would recommend thinking about...

The biggest being how are you going to sell the service? And is there a “local” market for this type of service.

There’s a lot of different ways to go about it but productizing it may help keep things simpler and more organized.

Here’s a nice little idea to help you get started...

Put together a 20-30 page informative press kit and send it out to your prospectives. Ask them if they get any value from it, if they do you officially have one foot in the door.

Let me know if you need some help with anything.

Best of luck!
 

MJ DeMarco

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+1 on the move to AZ, sunny, lots of stuff to do, decent vegan options (people + food), moderate entrepreneurial climate, and decent taxes, at least for now. With the influx of Californians, things have deteriorated in recent years.

What kind of software development you do? DO you work for a big co or a small company?
 
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G-Man

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There is nowhere on this list I would live other than Savannah, GA or AZ. I just spent 10 days in Phoenix with my brother and damn near didn't come back to TX.

Other than that, isn't the best place to move the place where you can find clients? I don't understand making the decision on another basis really. I'm sure a lot of your work and prospecting is online, but there's no downside to being able to easily meet a lot of clients face to face. I would imagine the demand for therapists is probably higher in Phoenix than the other places listed, but I don't actually know.
 

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Perhaps there's a market for your services in the recently graduated therapists, or those that are mid their internships that are planning to open a private practice?
 

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