Some questions about web design

[Bekit]

Based on your line of questioning, I suspect that you're looking for the wrong thing. If you look in the right place for the wrong thing, you could end up missing the real thing that would have helped you.

Shark's Teeth vs. Diamonds
A few years back, I went with some relatives to a place called Westmoreland State Park, where there are a ton of fossilized shark's teeth that you can find on the beach.

They're hard to spot at first. I remember feeling frustrated as I would stare at a section of the beach. It just looked like pebbles and sand to me. And then one of my cousins would reach down and pick up three shark's teeth from the exact spot where I had been looking for the last 10 minutes.

However, gradually, you get better at finding them. Once you've found a few, it's as if your brain expands. Suddenly, you can scan the ground and your brain instantly spots the unique shapes that match what you're looking for. Once this happens, you find them much faster.

The flip side of this is the fact that when you're looking for shark's teeth, you stop noticing ANYTHING else.

There could be gold or diamonds on the beach, but because your brain is scanning for shark's teeth, you're going to miss them.

Shark's teeth are great, and the really big ones are fun to find, but there's not much you can do with them except glue them to a piece of cardboard and frame them and put them on the wall. Whoopee.

Now imagine that you go to Crater of Diamonds State Park. But let's say you're still looking for shark's teeth.

Not only are you not going to find any shark's teeth, you're for sure going to miss the diamonds.

You're in the right place for a diamond. A diamond could be life-changing.

(I randomly saw an article about a guy who found a 9-carat diamond there 5 days ago. Super cool.)

But if the "pattern match" setting in your brain was calibrated for shark's teeth... bummer.


So here's where it seems to me like you are looking for the "wrong thing."

The agency charges $1k for Wordpress sites but Fox claims to charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions.

The problem is, I haven't seen any of Fox's websites and I don't see any links to them. Where are these legendary websites?

I just want some examples of websites he made that provided massive value to his clients. I don't believe there's anything wrong in asking for proof when someone makes bold claims.

My goal for this thread is go get a few example sites that Fox sold for $10K and where the client made massive sales as a result. So far it's all been said and written in words without anything concrete being shown.

I need to see concrete work before making a purchase.

He said he's able to charge a ton of money because his sites increase the client's sales. That's why I want to see what kinda sites he's been building.

That's why I asked to see the websites so that I can understand what he's doing differently to make them convert well.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want to see examples of the websites because you want to reverse engineer them. You want to see what's different about them compared to a basic site.

Maybe you can't fathom how a site could possibly charge $10k. Maybe you're picturing in your head that somehow, people "charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions." Maybe it seems to you like some sort of trick.

So you don't feel like you can make a decision to enroll unless you can see examples of the work.

Now - there's nothing wrong with wondering, "Hey, what's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't?" That's a great question.

But you don't need Fox's examples to be able to decipher that. You don't need to enroll in anything. You don't need to pay anything.

All you need to do is go to clickbank, look at their offers that are converting the best, and study the best-performing ones.

Or look at companies that are advertising heavily over a prolonged time period, and study their landing pages. (Because no advertiser will continue to pour money into ads unless they're getting more money than they're spending. i.e. They're selling a lot.) Then, compare those landing pages to a few "average" or "typical" sites in the same industry.

You can get a ton of insight doing this, and it's a great exercise.

But let's cut to the chase: if you're subconsciously thinking to yourself, "If I can only decipher what makes a high-converting website, then I'll be able to make great money as a web designer," you're looking for the wrong thing.

You're looking for a shark's tooth in the crater of diamonds.

Because here's the thing.

The ability to make good money as a web designer doesn't start with knowing that you can build a high-converting website.

It starts with your potential client believing that you can solve a problem for them and agreeing to pay your asking rate.

In other words, it starts with your ability to...

• Identify that potential client
• Get in front of that potential client
• Sell your services to that potential client

And to be good at all that, you have to...

• Think like a business owner
• Know how to solve problems, create value, and sell results (not just build websites)
• Have the outreach skills to get a hearing and close the deal
• Have the mindset and habits to support your efforts

This is what Lex was talking about when he said,

The sale of an expensive website has nothing to do with the quality of past websites you've built and everything to do with your mindset and how well you apply the tools at your disposal.

Something else to consider is that the sale happens before the website is built, not after. Portfolio items represent delivered materials for a given client. They do not represent the client's reasons for buying. For example, my website was sold without showing a portfolio at all (because I didn't have one). A portfolio is not necessary for closing high-ticket sales. The ability to sell is necessary for high-ticket sales.

But your ability to sell, at the end of the day, will be mostly inside your head. No one will be able to link to it. It'll be stuff like...

• Do you decide to procrastinate because of fear? Or do you decide to go ahead and call that business owner?
• Do you decide to quit when you face rejection? Or do you keep iterating and refining your pitch until you close a deal?
• Do you know how to keep your pipeline full so that you always have work?
• Do you know how to get inside the mind of your client's customer so that they want to buy?
• Do you have the skills to keep your prospect listening and interested in what you're saying?
• Do you have the discipline and the habits to manage your time and do the activities that move the needle?

Fox Web School won't be able to create a portfolio of the sales skill they impart to their students. But what they can do is point to the fact that their students are making good money by following the program. And they do that.

At the end of the day, if all you're looking for is, "What's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't," I'm sure you'll find that. And you don't need to join a program to figure that out.

But if what you really want is the ability to make good money in web design, just looking at the sites in Fox's portfolio is not going to get you there.

Seeing Fox's websites won't get you what you want.

^^ A shorter way of saying everything above.

I would suspect the major benefit to the school is to get you to raise your thinking game.

^^This

 

[Fox]

I've seen some of Fox's websites, and they are very basic ( no offense, the look like every other template). He has to be a great sales person that knows how to present. Do I think his websites are worth 10k? Not at all but he knows how to communicate to make them worth that much. The websites themselves lack the technical aspect to be able to really drive up sales for a business.

Alright just catching up on this thread properly and this comment is total nonsense.

They aren't worth 10k cause I run some sales magic - they are worth 10k or a lot more because they solve massive problems and create a ton of value. This isn't about creating hype - when you charge large amounts for a website there is clear win-win reason. 10k or 20k might sound large to you but it is still just a fraction of the value you are creating for the client (if done right).

If you don't get it - that is on you.

A lot of people in this thread are limited by their own experience. "I have only paid $300 for a logo so why would someone pay over a $1000?". Meanwhile a big business who has to then use that new logo on their stationary, their trucks, their offices, their shirts etc - they are NOT going to want to risk anything. That logo means a lot to them and they want it done right. They are happy to pay big money to have it done right the first time. Even just rolling out the new logo is already going to cost them a lot - why lowball so they can save a few dollars upfront? This is how a logo can easily be worth 10k.

Quick example: A medium-large delivery truck business
"Let's change our logo..."
Cost of wrapping 10 delivery trucks with new graphics: $15,000
Cost of changing all company clothes with new logo: $10,000
Cost of printing all new marketing and sales material: $20,000

But they should spend $300 on the logo to save some money? lol!

Again - don't be limited by your perspectives of working with some cheap clients on UpWork.

Just cause some personal trainer will only pay $200 for a logo doesn't mean others won't pay a lot more. Real businesses drop big money all the time to see even small gains in sales or results. When you step into their perspective it starts to make a lot more sense how $10,000 or $20,000 or even 50-100k is sometimes not that much if they get what they were after.

What might look simple to you was very important for them and worth paying a lot to have been done right.

Think bigger.

Main point: when you are a big business and there is a lot on the line you aren't going to mess around with trying to get a bargain. You need someone who gets it and who can deliver. You need someone who isn't just thinking technical and design - you want someone focused on understanding your exact problem and having the right solution to fix it.

When you look at a website as a third party you don't know what their problem was. You don't know what was holding them back. You don't know what they needed to move forward to the next level. All you see if a finished design and some text. It looks simple cause it is finished. But you don't see what problems were solved and how much they were worth - you only see the surface.

Example: Obama's 2012 website. I am not an Obama fan but look at what a very basic website was worth to him... Obama 2012

Anyone with some coding experiences could technically build that website. But what was it worth to him? Keep in mind it "increased donation conversions by 49%"

"He was the first candidate ever to receive $1 billion in donations, of which an incredible $690 million was raised digitally. (source: Time Magazine)"

$500? $5,000? $500,000? It helped win him an election and got him millions in donations.
Do you charge for what it takes to technically build it or what it is worth to him???

Look it is a free market and for you guys who are stuck at charging $100-$1,000 then that is your call. But there is no reason you have to be. There are millions of large businesses who are happy to pay a LOT more if you can just understand their problems and show you can help solve them. To do this you don't need some crazy technical website - you just need basic skills applied well.

----

Actually I will post one of my website but that will be it.

Barsplice Products, Inc. - Engineered mechanical splice systems

BarSplice Products, Inc. offers customers' a broad range of engineered mechanical splice systems for the benefit of the reinforced concrete construction industry. By means of market leadership, sales expertise and worldwide distribution, we consistently provide customer-focused solutions that...

barsplice.com

(This will probably just end up showing why I don't post real website links.)

This is a huge manufacturing business. They have worked with top clients like Amazon.
They needed a website to help boost sales and better show what they can offer.

I charged a very good amount for this website. Enough to travel for a year at the time. BUT they got an even better deal - a website like this can help bring in millions over the years and can be a massive part of their sales machine.

---

To wrap all this up I would say you have a choice:

1) use your skills to help smaller clients with small problems and small budgets.

2) or use your skills to go work with the biggest clients you can and help solve massive problems that mean a lot to them.

Same skills but far different result. The choice is in your mind and the market is on there on both sides.

For people who actually want to go big and aren't afraid to up their prices then if you want you can check out the school. If you are stuck thinking "a business owner is an idiot if they pay over $500" then best of luck - you will end up creating that reality for yourself.

 

[Fox]

I watched his interview with a big agency called A Nerd's World and it got me interested in the $2000 web school course that claims to have a ROI of $100k.

The agency charges $1k for Wordpress sites but Fox claims to charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions.

The problem is, I haven't seen any of Fox's websites and I don't see any links to them. Where are these legendary websites?

I usually don't link to websites cause it just attracts a few weird people who go "Jason Bourne" on my business. While you might want to just check things out there are other people who will call clients, send them YT links, annoy them for weeks etc.

I am sure anyone who has a real business has experienced this before - the internet is a crazy place and personal info you put out isn't so easy to take back.

The much better way to do this is to apply for the school, get on a call, and then ask for a bunch of links. At least then we know who you are and can feel better about sending client info/websites.

What is ironic is usually these requests come from people with zero real online presence themselves - randomusername909@yahoo.com wants all my past clients info and site links or else it has to be all fake. I see where most are coming from but on my side of the fence it is just a big request when I got nothing to tell me who this person is and what they really want.

If you reach out to me on FB or IG and I can see you are a real person usually I will send links. Or if you have been on this forum for a while and dm me instead of asking on a thread.
---

As for the school itself here you go:

Fox Web School is rated "Excellent" with 4.9 / 5 on Trustpilot

Do you agree with Fox Web School's TrustScore? Voice your opinion today and hear what 117 customers have already said.

www.trustpilot.com

Or check the reviews on the thread itself:

MARKETPLACE - The Proven Path to a Fastlane (Still Open for 2024)

Is web design still a profitable business in 2024? If you've been following me here or on Youtube, you probably know that I started a web design business back in 2016. If you missed it, I have a full gold thread on how it went here. In short, things went very well, I posted about it online...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

The 100k figure is based on top students like @GuitarManDan and @GoodluckChuck who are making around 100k or more per year. As with any program this is no guarantees but we do everything we can to help you get there. The main focus though isn't to make as much as you can with web design - it is to use web design to develop skills and fund bigger ventures.

Also just on a side note we have a lot of members from this forum drop in to help teach and outside experts too like Chris from a Nerds World and Ben Burns from The Futur.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Something else to consider is that the sale happens before the website is built, not after. Portfolio items represent delivered materials for a given client. They do not represent the client's reasons for buying. For example, my website was sold without showing a portfolio at all (because I didn't have one). A portfolio is not necessary for closing high-ticket sales. The ability to sell is necessary for high-ticket sales.

 

[JordanK]

You really should just have DM’d him instead of trying to call him out in a thread. I’m a previous client and friend of his. We’ve met in person many times and travelled from Europe together for the Summit in Phoenix last February. I have seen plenty of websites that he has built and he has shared them with others too.

The spam that I was referring too was not just your generic typical spam that you ignore. People were calling & emailing the companies asking if they were real and telling them “Oh I’m a better website designer than Fox and I can do a new even better site for x price. Multiply that by hundreds/thousands of inquisitive people like yourself that read his threads & watch his youtube vidoes and yes it becomes a major problem.

Not wasting anymore time with this thread. Your attitude sucks. Fix that first before you ever go into business. You have a scarcity mindset and you are pissing off people who could possibly help you along your journey. Wrong approach imo.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I don't doubt that a lot of people have taken his course but I'm afraid I don't trust testimonials. They definitely help but I need to see concrete work before making a purchase.



Finally, someone who hasn't sold his soul to the system.

The work isn't going to change anything for you. If you can sell a high-ticket item using the material, then you can. If you don't have it in you, then you can't and it won't matter how good Fox's websites or training are. Some people have it. Some people don't. The sale of an expensive website has nothing to do with the quality of past websites you've built and everything to do with your mindset and how well you apply the tools at your disposal.

 

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[GoodluckChuck]

I remember when I first got started in web design and I was going through Fox's course. I used to look through his portfolio quite often. I was looking for the same thing OP is. I was trying to reverse engineer how he was able to make that deal so I could do the same. Hell, I remember sending Fox an email letting him know I found a misspelled word. I thought that was so critical. Imagine my surprise a month later when the same word was still misspelled. Why didn't he fix it?

Maybe the reason is because it wasn't important enough. I was looking at the details on the website trying to figure out what made that site successful without knowing anything about the company behind the site or the customers they serve. I also didn't know what reasons the business owner had for hiring Fox or what struggles he had in the past that led up the moment he made the first payment. I was looking for the right things in the wrong place like Bekit said.

Here I am 4 years later and I don't even make portfolio pieces out of my deals anymore. I never found that they helped me close the deals I want to make. The 10k+ deals come from the clients needs and belief that I can fill those needs. They don't care very much about my portfolio because they can go directly to the source: Me.

The prospects that want to pour over my portfolio are usually looking to reverse engineer why they are successful or not but the reality is: If they knew the answers to those questions, they wouldn't need to hire me in the first place.

I think OP would do well to look at the students at FWS and try to understand what made them successful. I bet a few of them are even around for questioning. That's the source of the success, not the websites the school founder made long ago when he was still figuring out the web design business.

 

[Fox]

This thread peaked with @Bekit s post about 6 pages back.

Let's just all move on and enjoy the weekend.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

It never goes well questioning a legendary.
@Black_Dragon43 can attest to that.
Although KFS isn't legendary, he has legendary hordes.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, I got more clients and exposure out of questioning @Kung Fu Steve than anything else I've ever done in the forum. I've become a household name because of it.


So I think by all means authority should be questioned if they give you reasons to question them, and you're not just doing it for no reason. Smart people respect others who don't follow like sheep. And a community is helped by people who are on guard for possible unscrupulous behavior.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Based on your line of questioning, I suspect that you're looking for the wrong thing. If you look in the right place for the wrong thing, you could end up missing the real thing that would have helped you.

Shark's Teeth vs. Diamonds
A few years back, I went with some relatives to a place called Westmoreland State Park, where there are a ton of fossilized shark's teeth that you can find on the beach.

They're hard to spot at first. I remember feeling frustrated as I would stare at a section of the beach. It just looked like pebbles and sand to me. And then one of my cousins would reach down and pick up three shark's teeth from the exact spot where I had been looking for the last 10 minutes.

However, gradually, you get better at finding them. Once you've found a few, it's as if your brain expands. Suddenly, you can scan the ground and your brain instantly spots the unique shapes that match what you're looking for. Once this happens, you find them much faster.

The flip side of this is the fact that when you're looking for shark's teeth, you stop noticing ANYTHING else.

There could be gold or diamonds on the beach, but because your brain is scanning for shark's teeth, you're going to miss them.

Shark's teeth are great, and the really big ones are fun to find, but there's not much you can do with them except glue them to a piece of cardboard and frame them and put them on the wall. Whoopee.

Now imagine that you go to Crater of Diamonds State Park. But let's say you're still looking for shark's teeth.

Not only are you not going to find any shark's teeth, you're for sure going to miss the diamonds.

You're in the right place for a diamond. A diamond could be life-changing.

(I randomly saw an article about a guy who found a 9-carat diamond there 5 days ago. Super cool.)

But if the "pattern match" setting in your brain was calibrated for shark's teeth... bummer.


So here's where it seems to me like you are looking for the "wrong thing."








You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want to see examples of the websites because you want to reverse engineer them. You want to see what's different about them compared to a basic site.

Maybe you can't fathom how a site could possibly charge $10k. Maybe you're picturing in your head that somehow, people "charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions." Maybe it seems to you like some sort of trick.

So you don't feel like you can make a decision to enroll unless you can see examples of the work.

Now - there's nothing wrong with wondering, "Hey, what's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't?" That's a great question.

But you don't need Fox's examples to be able to decipher that. You don't need to enroll in anything. You don't need to pay anything.

All you need to do is go to clickbank, look at their offers that are converting the best, and study the best-performing ones.

Or look at companies that are advertising heavily over a prolonged time period, and study their landing pages. (Because no advertiser will continue to pour money into ads unless they're getting more money than they're spending. i.e. They're selling a lot.) Then, compare those landing pages to a few "average" or "typical" sites in the same industry.

You can get a ton of insight doing this, and it's a great exercise.

But let's cut to the chase: if you're subconsciously thinking to yourself, "If I can only decipher what makes a high-converting website, then I'll be able to make great money as a web designer," you're looking for the wrong thing.

You're looking for a shark's tooth in the crater of diamonds.

Because here's the thing.

The ability to make good money as a web designer doesn't start with knowing that you can build a high-converting website.

It starts with your potential client believing that you can solve a problem for them and agreeing to pay your asking rate.

In other words, it starts with your ability to...

• Identify that potential client
• Get in front of that potential client
• Sell your services to that potential client

And to be good at all that, you have to...

• Think like a business owner
• Know how to solve problems, create value, and sell results (not just build websites)
• Have the outreach skills to get a hearing and close the deal
• Have the mindset and habits to support your efforts

This is what Lex was talking about when he said,




But your ability to sell, at the end of the day, will be mostly inside your head. No one will be able to link to it. It'll be stuff like...

• Do you decide to procrastinate because of fear? Or do you decide to go ahead and call that business owner?
• Do you decide to quit when you face rejection? Or do you keep iterating and refining your pitch until you close a deal?
• Do you know how to keep your pipeline full so that you always have work?
• Do you know how to get inside the mind of your client's customer so that they want to buy?
• Do you have the skills to keep your prospect listening and interested in what you're saying?
• Do you have the discipline and the habits to manage your time and do the activities that move the needle?

Fox Web School won't be able to create a portfolio of the sales skill they impart to their students. But what they can do is point to the fact that their students are making good money by following the program. And they do that.

At the end of the day, if all you're looking for is, "What's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't," I'm sure you'll find that. And you don't need to join a program to figure that out.

But if what you really want is the ability to make good money in web design, just looking at the sites in Fox's portfolio is not going to get you there.


^^ A shorter way of saying everything above.


^^This

Legendary, makes me miss the REP button.

 

[biophase]

The argument about what something is worth is a very limiting belief. Just because you can build something in X hours, doesn’t mean it’s worth only 3x or 10x the markup.

Do you think a company like Tesla is paying $1000 for their logo? They would probably hire a marketing company and pay over $100k to get a new look. That company would farm the logo design out maybe for $25k. But why not just go on Fiverr?

It’s because the stakes are high if they get a shitty logo. A logo design is based on creativity and art. So the person your hire actually matters. He may come up with something you could do in MS paint, but if that’s the perfect logo then does it matter?

I hired a contractor to remodel my house that I’m very happy with. He is always the highest bid. He gets the job done on time but charges 30% more than the rest. Guess what? I don’t care that I’m paying more because I know I won’t have to deal with change orders and excuses.

My friends might think I’m crazy, but in my mind I’m paying the extra 30% to minimize my stress. I’m sure other contractors are wondering how he charges so much and they can’t even win with the low bid. They prob think his clients are rich idiots or just stupid.

In reality, they don’t understand the psychology of buyers. It sounds like some of you have this same issue.

The absolute price doesn’t matter. It’s the perceived value to the customer you are pitching to. I mean I once paid $8 for a can of Coke. Why would I do that, I know a can is worth $0.50? It’s because I hadn’t had one in 7 days and this guy was selling them out of a cooler in the middle of a jungle!

 

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[JordanK]

Fox used to pubically showcase sites that he built but since his threads & youtube content became really popular he had to remove them as people were contacting/spamming his clients.

 

[Jon L]

Seeing Fox's websites won't get you what you want. A website can look pretty and sound nice, but may not convert. An ugly website might convert like crazy.

Check out the original POF.com website. It was ugly as sin. Profile pictures weren't even sized correctly. They were forced into a standard box, and squished accordingly. But, the guy that made it took home millions per year in profits. Craigslist seems to be doing ok, too. I know a local website here that is not at all attractive, but sells an absolute ton of stuff. It was redone a year ago, from the ground up, by an expert marketer. Prior to the redo, it was just as ugly, but didn't convert.

What you need to see on high performing/expensive websites is how well they sell.

 

[Fox]

what's is the conclusion?

What looks good and what actually get results aren't always the same thing.

...and if you got to pick one focus on what actually matters to the business at the end of the day.

 

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[Fiftytwos]

That's the thing that's a complete mystery to me because a ton of prospects told me stuff like "You don't even have a portfolio, why should I hire you?". I lost all of the deals where prospects asked about my portfolio when I didn't have anything to show.

How exactly can you make a client believe that you can fill his needs without any kind of proof?

A client of mine wanted photography services and I shopped around for him. The first thing I did was look at the photographer's portfolio and hired the one with the best looking shots. Now, if a photographer tried to sell me his services without showing any of his previous works then I'd 100% never hire him.

I really don't understand what you guys are doing differently to be honest.

After reading this post I immediately thought of something Fox had told me before. I asked him a question like this on one of the live calls in his course (I've been a member for the past month or so). I'm gonna pass this question onto you so you can think about it the same way I did.

"If your car was broken down on the side of the road and someone stopped to help you would you ask them how many cars they've fixed, or if they're qualified to help you, or would you be grateful they stopped, and took time out of their day to help you with your problem and get you back on the road?"

This question was a gamechanger for me, and really helps clarify that imposter syndrome you feel when first starting out. If you can help someone with the problems they're having then they're much more likely to trust you, they trust you based on how you talk to them, the things you understand, the questions you ask them, and much more. You build a relationship with that prospect / customer not based on your portfolio, or past works, but based on how you present yourself, how you frame yourself as the expert and act like you're qualified. When you do this most people will not question your status, but will want to know how you can help them (if they need the help). I hope this helps put things into perspective, I found it very valuable.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Fox is the real deal, and so is his course.

 

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[Fox]

Looking at a website after it is done and trying to gauge how much it is worth is not so accurate. It’s just a theme and some text - hey I could do that easy.

It is like looking at a 10k or 100k logo and saying “hey I could design that in photoshop in a few minutes”. What you miss is all the “why” and instead just see the how.

A website fits into a business as a solution to a problem. The actual solution is usually not that hard - it was knowing what was the problem in the first place.

This is another reason I don’t share sites - people look at what it technically is, not what it actually did.

 

[Fox]

@Fox , sorry man, but that's just what you want to believe, and what you're telling yourself. It's just a story. The fact is, they are NOT worth $10K and they are not solving massive problems and creating a ton of value... If that's what solving massive problems looks like... lol

The reason why you're selling at those numbers is because you're selling to ignorant and naive people. That's the real secret here. It's not that you're solving massive problems.

And all the circumlocutions do nothing except drag the delusion forward.

I got in touch with an oil company.

They were struggling to sell. Maybe look at closing down. I agreed to help.

We set a budget at 7k.

I found out that a weak spot for them was presentations. They would have meetings and try to verbally explain everything and often they would run out of time to close the deal.

So I built a website that focused exactly on what would tie in well to their presentations. It showed a lot of past projects, it built a lot of trust, showed their experience and qualifications etc.

Site was technically very basic - just a few pages and a $20 theme.

Site goes live and within a few weeks they land a new $1,000,000 deal directly from the website. They had a meeting that didn't go well, they mentioned the website on the way out, and the potential client checked them out and decided to switch his mind and hire them.

You would look at that and say - well it is a basic website and a $20 theme. I'll change $500.

I charged 7k cause I priced it for what it did and that is how you run a profitable business based on value.

They are still great friends and love the website. They aren't "ignorant or naive" they just wanted to pay well for the problem to be fixed. Dude can you have bigger limiting beliefs about clients who pay good money???

You do have a lot of limiting beliefs but I can't help you cause you are projecting your own BS on me.

 

[BizyDad]

2 weeks ago a client contacted me to cancel his hosting because he was getting too many people contacting him asking for quotes. Now he doesn't have a website and he's never been happier. That's how I lost 1 client.

Hold. The. Phone. We all just skipped this comment?

Hey man, Congrats! This is yuge.

@LaneMan you gotta change your attitude. You're so busy feeling negative that you don't see the gold right in front of you. This is the best thing that's happened to your business so far.

In every meeting you can now slide it into conversation that you had a client cancel with you because you generated too many leads. Talk about a credibility builder! That's the kind of comment a winner makes. Losing that one client is worth it because will earn you the trust of dozens.

I actually touch on another way to leverage it this in this thread because it happened to another forum member.

 

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[JordanK]

So many limiting beliefs in so few posts.

 

[Andy Black]

Based on your line of questioning, I suspect that you're looking for the wrong thing. If you look in the right place for the wrong thing, you could end up missing the real thing that would have helped you.

Shark's Teeth vs. Diamonds
A few years back, I went with some relatives to a place called Westmoreland State Park, where there are a ton of fossilized shark's teeth that you can find on the beach.

They're hard to spot at first. I remember feeling frustrated as I would stare at a section of the beach. It just looked like pebbles and sand to me. And then one of my cousins would reach down and pick up three shark's teeth from the exact spot where I had been looking for the last 10 minutes.

However, gradually, you get better at finding them. Once you've found a few, it's as if your brain expands. Suddenly, you can scan the ground and your brain instantly spots the unique shapes that match what you're looking for. Once this happens, you find them much faster.

The flip side of this is the fact that when you're looking for shark's teeth, you stop noticing ANYTHING else.

There could be gold or diamonds on the beach, but because your brain is scanning for shark's teeth, you're going to miss them.

Shark's teeth are great, and the really big ones are fun to find, but there's not much you can do with them except glue them to a piece of cardboard and frame them and put them on the wall. Whoopee.

Now imagine that you go to Crater of Diamonds State Park. But let's say you're still looking for shark's teeth.

Not only are you not going to find any shark's teeth, you're for sure going to miss the diamonds.

You're in the right place for a diamond. A diamond could be life-changing.

(I randomly saw an article about a guy who found a 9-carat diamond there 5 days ago. Super cool.)

But if the "pattern match" setting in your brain was calibrated for shark's teeth... bummer.


So here's where it seems to me like you are looking for the "wrong thing."








You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want to see examples of the websites because you want to reverse engineer them. You want to see what's different about them compared to a basic site.

Maybe you can't fathom how a site could possibly charge $10k. Maybe you're picturing in your head that somehow, people "charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions." Maybe it seems to you like some sort of trick.

So you don't feel like you can make a decision to enroll unless you can see examples of the work.

Now - there's nothing wrong with wondering, "Hey, what's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't?" That's a great question.

But you don't need Fox's examples to be able to decipher that. You don't need to enroll in anything. You don't need to pay anything.

All you need to do is go to clickbank, look at their offers that are converting the best, and study the best-performing ones.

Or look at companies that are advertising heavily over a prolonged time period, and study their landing pages. (Because no advertiser will continue to pour money into ads unless they're getting more money than they're spending. i.e. They're selling a lot.) Then, compare those landing pages to a few "average" or "typical" sites in the same industry.

You can get a ton of insight doing this, and it's a great exercise.

But let's cut to the chase: if you're subconsciously thinking to yourself, "If I can only decipher what makes a high-converting website, then I'll be able to make great money as a web designer," you're looking for the wrong thing.

You're looking for a shark's tooth in the crater of diamonds.

Because here's the thing.

The ability to make good money as a web designer doesn't start with knowing that you can build a high-converting website.

It starts with your potential client believing that you can solve a problem for them and agreeing to pay your asking rate.

In other words, it starts with your ability to...

• Identify that potential client
• Get in front of that potential client
• Sell your services to that potential client

And to be good at all that, you have to...

• Think like a business owner
• Know how to solve problems, create value, and sell results (not just build websites)
• Have the outreach skills to get a hearing and close the deal
• Have the mindset and habits to support your efforts

This is what Lex was talking about when he said,




But your ability to sell, at the end of the day, will be mostly inside your head. No one will be able to link to it. It'll be stuff like...

• Do you decide to procrastinate because of fear? Or do you decide to go ahead and call that business owner?
• Do you decide to quit when you face rejection? Or do you keep iterating and refining your pitch until you close a deal?
• Do you know how to keep your pipeline full so that you always have work?
• Do you know how to get inside the mind of your client's customer so that they want to buy?
• Do you have the skills to keep your prospect listening and interested in what you're saying?
• Do you have the discipline and the habits to manage your time and do the activities that move the needle?

Fox Web School won't be able to create a portfolio of the sales skill they impart to their students. But what they can do is point to the fact that their students are making good money by following the program. And they do that.

At the end of the day, if all you're looking for is, "What's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't," I'm sure you'll find that. And you don't need to join a program to figure that out.

But if what you really want is the ability to make good money in web design, just looking at the sites in Fox's portfolio is not going to get you there.


^^ A shorter way of saying everything above.


^^This

Great post @Bekit. Thanks for putting so much time and effort into writing it.

My main thoughts skimming this thread are:

1. WHAT is being done and WHY is more important than HOW.
   
   
2. I provide digital marketing services. I don't have a portfolio site. Heck, I don't even have a website. There's lots of ways to skin a cat.

 

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[BizyDad]

That's the thing that's a complete mystery to me because a ton of prospects told me stuff like "You don't even have a portfolio, why should I hire you?". I lost all of the deals where prospects asked about my portfolio when I didn't have anything to show.

Oh my goodness, this is the easiest problem to overcome. IF, I stress if, you need to build a portfolio, find three people who need a website and do it for free. If this is really that important to you, you should have done this by now. I haven't taken the course, but I think this solution is actually presented in there.

but to be honest, I've been selling websites for 10 years, I could count on one hand the number of times somebody asked for a portfolio. Almost all of it happened in my first year of sales, and I think it happened for one reason. The person didn't trust me.

Something in my presentation screamed "rookie".

See once I got some confidence in my company's abilities to deliver, and my ability to go through a sales process, I started asking better questions, focusing on the problems that really need to be solved, and then confidently presenting actual solution. and whenever they ask questions of me, I didn't stammer through the responses, I didn't look down and try and come up with answers. I looked them in the eye and told them what I thought would work.

With a little experience under my belt, I figured out the process to identify the real needs, people stopped asking for portfolio. I think it's happened twice in the last nine years, both times because I was selling a bigger corporation and the person needed something to show their boss.

 

[LaneMan]

I watched his interview with a big agency called A Nerd's World and it got me interested in the $2000 web school course that claims to have a ROI of $100k.

The agency charges $1k for Wordpress sites but Fox claims to charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions.

The problem is, I haven't seen any of Fox's websites and I don't see any links to them. Where are these legendary websites?

 

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[George Appiah]

Disclaimer: I'm NOT a student of @Fox. I've watched ALL his YouTube videos, including the very video you seem to be referencing. And while I agree with him on most points, I disagree with him on quite a few, including his advice to newbies to build a few free websites to build a portfolio before selling.

That said, you probably should re-watch the said video and dig a little deeper into any material you consume before drawing conclusions, as you seem to have missed key points.

The agency charges $1k for Wordpress sites but Fox claims to charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions.

I don't know where you got this $1,000 figure from. But since your sole (or at least a key) argument is why Fox is claiming you can charge $10k for a project while an established agency he interviewed is supposedly charging $1k, one would have thought you'd visit the said agency's website to check their pricing for web design.



If you need help to decipher the above pricing table, the $1,000 is just for their most basic BRONZE WordPress setup, using an off-the-shelf theme customized for you (2 rounds of revisions). That doesn't give you a complete website though: it's just a WordPress site with no page built. A 3-page website would cost $1,900 total... and $300 for EACH additional page.

A 10-page GOLD package (which has a few other WordPress plugins and config thrown in) costs $11,000, plus $300 for EACH additional page. And that's still a basic website/blog, not e-commerce, e-learning, or any complicated setup requiring application-specific plugin(s).

As I said from the onset, I'm not a @Fox student and I can't say anything about his claims. So don't take this as a defence of Fox Web School or an endorsement. I just jumped in to share this because I found the whole premise of your argument flawed.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I've sold an $8,000+ website using Fox's course. It was the second website I ever sold. A wordpress template.

The site has been modified at least three times by others and looks nothing like what I delivered. Also, I am not a web designer and I haven't tried to sell any other websites since.

The company makes $50k to $100k+ on every sale they earn. So dropping $8k+ on a website wasn't a big deal for them.

That said, I don't consider myself representative of the status quo and I have experience selling other high-ticket items.

 

[TonyStark]

I don’t think it’s weird to want to see some of Fox’s websites. Everyone should be skeptical of people trying to sell you products over the internet. OP has a genuine curiosity of the quality of the product. Especially if he is going to drop 1K on a “web design course”, I’m sure he wants to know the quality of websites he will be learning to build.

 

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[Fox]

Based on your line of questioning, I suspect that you're looking for the wrong thing. If you look in the right place for the wrong thing, you could end up missing the real thing that would have helped you.

Shark's Teeth vs. Diamonds
A few years back, I went with some relatives to a place called Westmoreland State Park, where there are a ton of fossilized shark's teeth that you can find on the beach.

They're hard to spot at first. I remember feeling frustrated as I would stare at a section of the beach. It just looked like pebbles and sand to me. And then one of my cousins would reach down and pick up three shark's teeth from the exact spot where I had been looking for the last 10 minutes.

However, gradually, you get better at finding them. Once you've found a few, it's as if your brain expands. Suddenly, you can scan the ground and your brain instantly spots the unique shapes that match what you're looking for. Once this happens, you find them much faster.

The flip side of this is the fact that when you're looking for shark's teeth, you stop noticing ANYTHING else.

There could be gold or diamonds on the beach, but because your brain is scanning for shark's teeth, you're going to miss them.

Shark's teeth are great, and the really big ones are fun to find, but there's not much you can do with them except glue them to a piece of cardboard and frame them and put them on the wall. Whoopee.

Now imagine that you go to Crater of Diamonds State Park. But let's say you're still looking for shark's teeth.

Not only are you not going to find any shark's teeth, you're for sure going to miss the diamonds.

You're in the right place for a diamond. A diamond could be life-changing.

(I randomly saw an article about a guy who found a 9-carat diamond there 5 days ago. Super cool.)

But if the "pattern match" setting in your brain was calibrated for shark's teeth... bummer.


So here's where it seems to me like you are looking for the "wrong thing."








You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want to see examples of the websites because you want to reverse engineer them. You want to see what's different about them compared to a basic site.

Maybe you can't fathom how a site could possibly charge $10k. Maybe you're picturing in your head that somehow, people "charge $10K for websites that are much simpler but supposedly has some copywriting and stuff to increase the client's conversions." Maybe it seems to you like some sort of trick.

So you don't feel like you can make a decision to enroll unless you can see examples of the work.

Now - there's nothing wrong with wondering, "Hey, what's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't?" That's a great question.

But you don't need Fox's examples to be able to decipher that. You don't need to enroll in anything. You don't need to pay anything.

All you need to do is go to clickbank, look at their offers that are converting the best, and study the best-performing ones.

Or look at companies that are advertising heavily over a prolonged time period, and study their landing pages. (Because no advertiser will continue to pour money into ads unless they're getting more money than they're spending. i.e. They're selling a lot.) Then, compare those landing pages to a few "average" or "typical" sites in the same industry.

You can get a ton of insight doing this, and it's a great exercise.

But let's cut to the chase: if you're subconsciously thinking to yourself, "If I can only decipher what makes a high-converting website, then I'll be able to make great money as a web designer," you're looking for the wrong thing.

You're looking for a shark's tooth in the crater of diamonds.

Because here's the thing.

The ability to make good money as a web designer doesn't start with knowing that you can build a high-converting website.

It starts with your potential client believing that you can solve a problem for them and agreeing to pay your asking rate.

In other words, it starts with your ability to...

• Identify that potential client
• Get in front of that potential client
• Sell your services to that potential client

And to be good at all that, you have to...

• Think like a business owner
• Know how to solve problems, create value, and sell results (not just build websites)
• Have the outreach skills to get a hearing and close the deal
• Have the mindset and habits to support your efforts

This is what Lex was talking about when he said,




But your ability to sell, at the end of the day, will be mostly inside your head. No one will be able to link to it. It'll be stuff like...

• Do you decide to procrastinate because of fear? Or do you decide to go ahead and call that business owner?
• Do you decide to quit when you face rejection? Or do you keep iterating and refining your pitch until you close a deal?
• Do you know how to keep your pipeline full so that you always have work?
• Do you know how to get inside the mind of your client's customer so that they want to buy?
• Do you have the skills to keep your prospect listening and interested in what you're saying?
• Do you have the discipline and the habits to manage your time and do the activities that move the needle?

Fox Web School won't be able to create a portfolio of the sales skill they impart to their students. But what they can do is point to the fact that their students are making good money by following the program. And they do that.

At the end of the day, if all you're looking for is, "What's the difference between a site that sells and provides value versus a site that doesn't," I'm sure you'll find that. And you don't need to join a program to figure that out.

But if what you really want is the ability to make good money in web design, just looking at the sites in Fox's portfolio is not going to get you there.


^^ A shorter way of saying everything above.


^^This

Perfectly said. Thanks Bekit!

Lots of great info there for anyone struggling to get going with sales/web design.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Can you talk a little more about how u went from budget clients to better ones?

It's simple. Typically the way it happened for my first high-ticket clients (this is 3 years ago or so), is that I did a small job for them, which delivered great results, then they were confident enough to bring me to bigger projects. They also saw that they may pay me a lot, but I become the equivalent of a business partner for them, and they simply cannot find anyone else like me. I own an agency now, but I can code, I can do security for a website, I can design, I can write copy, I can run ads - pretty much alone I am the full-packet. And obviously, I can advise them on all that, including managing people. Very few people like this, but a ton of specialists. But I've been working day and night to get this good. Literarily.

After that, referrals, re-activating old clients, cold outreach to strategic clients on the precipice of needing my services. There was a hard time for me from April to July this year (scaled down from 6 to 2 employees), August was the best month of the year, and September was actually the best month ever, in an entirely re-organized biz.

Basically - do your best work, regardless of the money, and the money will come. It may not be as fast as these "mindset" guys, but while you'll be a millionaire, they'll still be making 100K. The main reason why these people can't make more, is because try as they might, they simply LACK THE SKILLS in the MECHANICS of business. The only way to make up for that is to find an idiot who will dish out some money once, and that's it. Next.

I will add that, you also need to choose your clients wisely. If you work for idiots or sucky businessmen (and there are a lot of them), you're going to struggle. Because these people can't make money themselves. They're either too lazy, they expect people to do stuff for them, they don't want to learn, and so on. A real entrepreneur is driven, like a beast. They will learn what it takes, do what it takes, spend as much time as it takes. That's the people who you want to work with. Who are ambitious, have a clear understanding of where they are, and where they want to go, and driven to succeed.

And no insult to anyone, but frankly most of these people you won't find on a forum, because they tend to be too busy working on their projects, and the vast majority of them don't like talking about stuff as we do. The reason I'm here is because I am a student of business. I love learning and sharing with other people. I love discussing ideas, and I like understanding things. There are some people like me here. There are also a whole host of people here who are here for the community - they may not be the best or the brightest in business, but they have good self-esteem and enjoy sharing their journey and learning from others - they're also typically not very ambitious. There are also some here who love to show off (oh look at me, I made 1M - a lot of these threads - don't confuse these people with the most ambitious). You have to be careful who you learn from, and who you leave just for the social aspect of the forum.

 

[Fox]

So it is simply a matter of picking up the phone and prospecting all day until you are able to qualify some "real clients" then.

No. That is not how it is done.

I got a dozen threads on here and a Youtube channel with 100s of hours of free content on how to get started. I have answered that question 100s of times.

We even talked about this exact thing specifically it in the video you supposably watched in your first post. Like that exact question was answered in a ton of detail.

Here is another link...

 

[Varlenheit]

I don't expect you to help people for free - I wouldn't do it.

But he literally does that on his threads though ?

 

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[BizyDad]

@Black_Dragon43 are you just here to pick fights with people cuz you know it helps you sell?

I purposefully addressed you because I knew you'd be triggered, so... 1-0 for me.

I got more clients and exposure out of questioning @Kung Fu Steve than anything else I've ever done in the forum. I've become a household name because of it.

And now you're here trying to take the moral high ground on Fox? To what, attack his reputation?

@Fox , sorry man, but that's just what you want to believe, and what you're telling yourself. It's just a story. The fact is, they are NOT worth $10K and they are not solving massive problems and creating a ton of value... If that's what solving massive problems looks like... lol

The reason why you're selling at those numbers is because you're selling to ignorant and naive people. That's the real secret here. It's not that you're solving massive problems.

But aren't you the guy that two days ago in this thread hyped the morality of selling astrological healing Alibaba trinkets to 40 year old "broken grannies"? Do you think maybe you are projecting your worldview on @Fox way too much here?

I just can't believe the audacity of the hypocrisy.

And you know, when I asked you why you don't just let your expertise shine through without feeling the need to trigger folks or neg folks or say derogatory things about them you said:

Because I get bored... I prefer to have fun.

Remember how you said you don't put people down? Like this isn't a put down?

The reason why you're selling at those numbers is because you're selling to ignorant and naive people. That's the real secret here. It's not that you're solving massive problems.

You admittedly attack people for fun. Watching you work is disgusting. Especially when you say things like:

Afterall, this is a forum - a place to discuss ideas, not play guru and build an audience.

Seriously? You say that with a straight face? Ok, in a vacuum that's a perfectly reasonable comment.

Then why do I see you mentioning yourself alongside Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson while angling for more course sales?

I recommend that you study the following, they will teach you the basics about direct marketing, and how to build out your funnels.
• Dan Kennedy - No B.S. Direct Response Marketing
• Russell Brunson - DotCom Secrets
• And if you want a single, complete solution that is going to show you how to switch to the funnel model from A to Z, I recommend my course: 5-Steps to Create a Money-Making Machine (which you can find in the Marketplace). There's nothing like it on the market that explains the entire process - from identifying your target audience, to analyzing the competition, setting up your funnel, doing your positioning, advertising, and then setting up powerful email backends. In fact, some of my students have broken the million dollar mark in revenues, and I launched the course just one year ago (check the video testimonial in the Marketplace).

Watching you flip flop positions almost gave me whiplash. You've missed your calling as a politician.

Can we all just take a minute to laugh about how "there's nothing like it on the market"?

You're on here taking Fox to task for over-hyping html sites, but you peddle "funnels" like they are the future of ecommerce and "storefronts" are dead.

you guys are all struggling is because you're using an outdated business model. You try to sell via a storefront.

In that other thread you did many of the things you now are accusing Fox of doing. I mean, weren't you bragging on this "million dollar" funnel page?

https://offer.projectyourself.com/natural-white-chalcedony-positivity-bracelet/

But you complain about the work Fox does? Puh-lease. It was genius when you helped someone close more sales two days ago, but now he's holding himself back?

I said it before, but it bears repeating:

you're obviously a smart dude. You don't have to put people down to build yourself up.

I think others have had interesting relevant (and some maybe not so relevant) questions about how Fox conducts himself or his school, but I think you're just here to become "a household name" and you're just stirring the pot to do it.

You're a reason posts like this get made.

Spoiler: Spoiler Alert

I predict Black Dragon is going to do some mental gymnastics to explain this all away because he's actually a good guy with strong moral fiber who would never ever engage in any of the behaviour I am mentioning. I'm probably just misunderstanding his points, he might even take a long time to clarify them to "prove" I'm wrong in my assessment. Also, this was all obviously light hearted jabs or jokes and anyone who has a problem with him or his tactics is taking it all too seriously or is too thin skinned. His course is 1% (or 3, or 4) of his "mid six figure" revenue, but he'd like it to be higher. What's wrong with that? And if his posts bring a lot of value, who cares if he sells his course? He's the forum's next Walter Hay and he's paying to be featured in the marketplace.

Failing to be able to respond with any of that since I spoilered his usual answers, he'll say something dismissive or just not reply at all. But no matter what, he'll never own up to his hyprocrisy.