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The progress of Visionz

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

tjark

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Hi guys,

this is the progress thread of Visionz.

Visionz is a webdesign agency my business partner (@Ole1) and I launched in November of 2019.

The current state of the business is, that we are both working full time at it and are earning enough money to cover our living expenses. Last month (December 2020) was our first month to make more than 10k in sales (A big success for us).

But it should not stay like this. These are the goals for 2021:
- We want to scale: Reach 30k in sales per month in 2021
- From now on every month more than 10k in sales
- At least one employee

But what does our progress thread offer to you?
- See which highs and lows occur on the way and how to manage them
- Learn from our mistakes and successes
- Get to see, whether a webdesign business is something you want to pursue

From now on I will post a main update every last day of a month. These main updates will include how much money was made, an evaluation of the goals and the setting of goals for the new month.

I will add smaller updates, if something important happens or to get advice from you guys.

Every update will give you an insight in our business and the current state of it. Through this thread you can participate in our highs and lows, our struggles and our successes.

This progress thread is also a method for us to keep ourselves accountable and get advice from other users of the forum.

To accelerate our progress we joined Fox Sales Legends last month. I think most of you guys will know @Fox from other threads and posts of this forum. I know many other of his students are active in this forum, too, like @GuitarManDan, whose own progress thread inspired me to do this one.

To sum things up, here are the goals for January:
- Make at least 10k in sales
- Win at least 3 new clients, with projects, that are a good addition to our portfolio

How are we going to reach these goals?
- Scale the revenue of one of our customers, where we get an 5% commission (This client alone made us 8k last month, but this spike is only temporary, because his success is bound to the ongoing lockdown here in Germany).
- Cold calls and referrals
- Networking (Hard at the moment, because of the lockdown, but we try our best)

If you have any advice or question, feel free to comment. I'm happy about any feedback. I want to make this thread as interesting as possible for you, so I'm happy about feedback on my posts, too.
 
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Hi guys,

this is the progress thread of Visionz.

Visionz is a webdesign agency my business partner (@Ole1) and I launched in November of 2019.

The current state of the business is, that we are both working full time at it and are earning enough money to cover our living expenses. Last month (December 2020) was our first month to make more than 10k in sales (A big success for us).

But it should not stay like this. These are the goals for 2021:
- We want to scale: Reach 30k in sales per month in 2021
- From now on every month more than 10k in sales
- At least one employee

But what does our progress thread offer to you?
- See which highs and lows occur on the way and how to manage them
- Learn from our mistakes and successes
- Get to see, whether a webdesign business is something you want to pursue

From now on I will post a main update every last day of a month. These main updates will include how much money was made, an evaluation of the goals and the setting of goals for the new month.

I will add smaller updates, if something important happens or to get advice from you guys.

Every update will give you an insight in our business and the current state of it. Through this thread you can participate in our highs and lows, our struggles and our successes.

This progress thread is also a method for us to keep ourselves accountable and get advice from other users of the forum.

To accelerate our progress we joined Fox Sales Legends last month. I think most of you guys will know @Fox from other threads and posts of this forum. I know many other of his students are active in this forum, too, like @GuitarManDan, whose own progress thread inspired me to do this one.

To sum things up, here are the goals for January:
- Make at least 10k in sales
- Win at least 3 new clients, with projects, that are a good addition to our portfolio

How are we going to reach these goals?
- Scale the revenue of one of our customers, where we get an 5% commission (This client alone made us 8k last month, but this spike is only temporary, because his success is bound to the ongoing lockdown here in Germany).
- Cold calls and referrals
- Networking (Hard at the moment, because of the lockdown, but we try our best)

If you have any advice or question, feel free to comment. I'm happy about any feedback. I want to make this thread as interesting as possible for you, so I'm happy about feedback on my posts, too.

Great to see this thread. Feel free to tag me in here or within the program group for any help.

Wish you all the best with the goals @randomhelper.
 

Raja

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Hi guys,

this is the progress thread of Visionz.

Visionz is a webdesign agency my business partner (@Ole1) and I launched in November of 2019.

The current state of the business is, that we are both working full time at it and are earning enough money to cover our living expenses. Last month (December 2020) was our first month to make more than 10k in sales (A big success for us).

But it should not stay like this. These are the goals for 2021:
- We want to scale: Reach 30k in sales per month in 2021
- From now on every month more than 10k in sales
- At least one employee

But what does our progress thread offer to you?
- See which highs and lows occur on the way and how to manage them
- Learn from our mistakes and successes
- Get to see, whether a webdesign business is something you want to pursue

From now on I will post a main update every last day of a month. These main updates will include how much money was made, an evaluation of the goals and the setting of goals for the new month.

I will add smaller updates, if something important happens or to get advice from you guys.

Every update will give you an insight in our business and the current state of it. Through this thread you can participate in our highs and lows, our struggles and our successes.

This progress thread is also a method for us to keep ourselves accountable and get advice from other users of the forum.

To accelerate our progress we joined Fox Sales Legends last month. I think most of you guys will know @Fox from other threads and posts of this forum. I know many other of his students are active in this forum, too, like @GuitarManDan, whose own progress thread inspired me to do this one.

To sum things up, here are the goals for January:
- Make at least 10k in sales
- Win at least 3 new clients, with projects, that are a good addition to our portfolio

How are we going to reach these goals?
- Scale the revenue of one of our customers, where we get an 5% commission (This client alone made us 8k last month, but this spike is only temporary, because his success is bound to the ongoing lockdown here in Germany).
- Cold calls and referrals
- Networking (Hard at the moment, because of the lockdown, but we try our best)

If you have any advice or question, feel free to comment. I'm happy about any feedback. I want to make this thread as interesting as possible for you, so I'm happy about feedback on my posts, too.
great work and all the best.

what services do you guys offer?
 

GuitarManDan

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Excited to keep an eye on this thread, you guys have an excellent foundation to build from this year!
 
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tjark

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great work and all the best.

what services do you guys offer?
Hey Raja,

at the moment we are kind of in several niches. We offer webdesign, SEO, building online shops and online marketing.

Our biggest portfolio project is probably in building online shops and marketing. Last year we build an online shop for a client, whose "old" sales channels were gone due to covid.
This shop made him more than 500k in sales last year and approximately 90% to 95% of his revenue was generated through ads we placed on facebook, instragram, etc.

In webdesign and SEO we got some portfolio projects, too, but they are less impressive.
One of the projects was a new website for a lawyer nearby, who is now ranking on Google in the top 5 for most keywords relevant to him.
I plan to use the results of this project to contact other lawyers from other areas of law, because there should be quite many lawyers, that are hard to find online.
 

tjark

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Update: January 2021

Hey guys,

today is the 31st of January, and it's time for the first update.

This was a pretty good month - Our best month so far, but let's look into it.

Let's recap the goals real quick:
- We wanted to make 10k revenue
- We wanted to win at least three projects for our portfolio

Which clients did we won?
- One client from last year came back to us, because she wanted some changes to her website. Mainly this was about a form she needed to craft an offer for incoming clients. Prior to this, her clients had to fill out an offline form, which is much less convenient. I'm not really sure, if I can count this to the three portfolio projects, because it's a very specific problem.
- Another former client came to us and asked for another website. The project hasn't started yet, because he needs to talk to a business partner. This is the first project I would count.
- We won a new client through referrals. She is a lawyer and has no prior website. The invoice is already sent, and the project will start after payment.
- Earlier this week we talked to a guy about his online shop. His industry is timber trade, which works successful offline, but his online shop is not making enough revenue so far. In March, we will start advertising for him and later a new online shop will be build.

So yes, even without counting the first mentioned project, we reached our goal of three projects with potential for our portfolio.

How much revenue did we make:

- Our biggest client, which is an online shop, has had a real good month. They made around 225k in revenue, and we get 5% of that. This means: This client alone made us 11,250€. Therefore, we reached our goal with this client alone.
- The client with the form for her website pays us 1242€.
- The upfront payment from the lawyer is 1000€.
- Other projects start later, so no revenue from those yet.

Total revenue: 13,492€. Therefore, we reached this goal too.


Problems and challenges, we might have to face:

I'm aware, that most of our revenue comes from one client, which is never a comfortable position to be in. But worse is: Facebook suspended the advertising account of this client, and it takes for ever to open it back up. Around 60 to 80% of the revenue came from Facebook.
Our strategy to gain momentum again: SEO, Google Ads and Pinterest Ads. This will probably help us a bit, but can not make up for everything. Do you guys have any idea how we could advertise his orchids even more?

We need long term strategies for client acquisition. I think, it's time now to implement reliable processes, that help us get more clients on.

Short term client acquisition to me is something like:
- cold calls
- cold mailing
- direct mailing
- direct outreach
- Ads

Long term strategies would be something like:
- SEO
- Building a social media presence (LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.).
- Growing our network

I really need some advice on this. Should we focus on one strategy first or all at once? Growing the network is set for me and I would like to get more into SEO, but is this even effective at this point or is it to early? Do you have other strategies, we could try? What do you guys think?


Goals for February:
- 15k revenue
- Finish the project for the lawyer
- Finish the new website for the client, I mentioned before.
- Win another 3 projects

Any feedback or advice is appreciated. I feel like, we are at a good position at the moment, from which we can really get to the next level, but don't know what to do next.


Best
-Tjark
 

tjark

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Hi guys,

today I come to you with very bad news. I stated that I want to talk about our successes and our failures. So here is a failure:

Yesterday a client called - The orchid producer we manage the online store for, who pays us 5% commission of his revenue every month. The one who paid us above 10k last month.

He called and said that he doesn't want to work with us any longer. He already found a new agency, that is bigger and can offer them more services to scale his business up.

As soon he said this, I was totally shocked. I haven't seen this coming at all. It felt so f*cking bad. We just lost our biggest client and with him a steady income of 5 to 10k every month. That's one thing. That alone is hard.
What's even harder is, that he is gone, because he wasn't happy with us anymore - And we haven't even recognized it.

I felt and feel so bad about this. This is my first real failure, which also feels like one. I started some businesses and ideas in the past. Some made a little money, others didn't work, and I moved on. But losing a client, because has the impression, that we are not the right fit for him as a partner anymore, and he was unhappy, that's something new, and honestly it is very hard for me to deal with it.

I talked really open with him about what went wrong and which errors we made. I only wish, we could have talked before he decided to move to a new partner. These were errors we could have prevented in retro perspective.

I also asked him for a chance to do better, but he already made a deal with a new agency. I mean, that is hard, and it would have been nicer, if he had talked to us about this idea before, but I can't even say, that his decision is wrong.

We are two guys, relatively new to the game and are not as experienced as bigger agencies
, that have scaled up stores to millions before. I have the feeling, that he has outgrown us in a way, if this makes sense.

The tipping point for him was, when the Facebook pixel we used was restricted, and we had no chance to get it back up. This happened for a stupid reason I think, and I think he would have stayed, if this would have not had happened. But I have to admit, that not being abled to get it back up, was due to mistakes we made in the past.

But honestly I think, that this is just a symptom of a bigger root cause - The communication. We should have recognized how he felt about the partnership - we didn't, and therefore we haven't changed the way we worked with him. To me, we were his marketing department, but what he wanted was someone who manages the whole shop and comes with new ideas how to scale up and improve his processes.

Now I can only take learnings from this and do it better in the future. Here are some things I plan to change:
  • With ongoing partnerships schedule monthly meetings about how the client feels about our partnership, what his problems are and talk about his goals. Needs change and so does the work we do has to.
  • We have to change our work ethic again. We made good money with this client and became lazy. Furthermore, we put in a lot of hours, but aren't really efficient with our time. We talk too much work to less. I've to change that
  • I am thinking about a set time at which we have to be in the office. Something like not later than 8:30 am. On most days I'm in the office at 8 am, but some days not and Ole likes to come late. I do not think, that this is good for work ethic.
  • I want to be more involved in client communication. Previously Ole talked to the clients and I think, it would be good, if I would get more involved in it.
  • Do more cold calling, cold mailing, reaching out again. Like I said, we got lazy and haven't worked hard enough on getting enough new clients in the short term. This has to change. Only because we don't like cold calls, we are not allowed to not do them.

All I can say at the end is, that I haven't felt this bad in a long time and I honestly I do not want to feel like this ever again, but I know it will happen. I will make mistakes in the future, some less bad, some worse - This is the fastlane. I can only make mistakes, think about it, adjust and attack again with a better plan.

TL;DR: Lost our biggest client, because our communication was bad and we f*cked some things up.

Maybe someone can relate or has advice.

Would love to hear from you guys.

Maybe @Fox has an idea how to deal with it.

Best
- Tjark
 
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MattL

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For cold calling, @Vilox has an inspiring cold calling progress thread where he sold websites. Maybe the posts in that thread will motivate you to start dialing.

You already seem to have a clear plan on how to avoid these things from happening in the future, no comments there, looks good.
 

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Hi guys,

today I come to you with very bad news. I stated that I want to talk about our successes and our failures. So here is a failure:

Yesterday a client called - The orchid producer we manage the online store for, who pays us 5% commission of his revenue every month. The one who paid us above 10k last month.

He called and said that he doesn't want to work with us any longer. He already found a new agency, that is bigger and can offer them more services to scale his business up.

As soon he said this, I was totally shocked. I haven't seen this coming at all. It felt so f*cking bad. We just lost our biggest client and with him a steady income of 5 to 10k every month. That's one thing. That alone is hard.
What's even harder is, that he is gone, because he wasn't happy with us anymore - And we haven't even recognized it.

I felt and feel so bad about this. This is my first real failure, which also feels like one. I started some businesses and ideas in the past. Some made a little money, others didn't work, and I moved on. But losing a client, because has the impression, that we are not the right fit for him as a partner anymore, and he was unhappy, that's something new, and honestly it is very hard for me to deal with it.

I talked really open with him about what went wrong and which errors we made. I only wish, we could have talked before he decided to move to a new partner. These were errors we could have prevented in retro perspective.

I also asked him for a chance to do better, but he already made a deal with a new agency. I mean, that is hard, and it would have been nicer, if he had talked to us about this idea before, but I can't even say, that his decision is wrong.

We are two guys, relatively new to the game and are not as experienced as bigger agencies, that have scaled up stores to millions before. I have the feeling, that he has outgrown us in a way, if this makes sense.

The tipping point for him was, when the Facebook pixel we used was restricted, and we had no chance to get it back up. This happened for a stupid reason I think, and I think he would have stayed, if this would have not had happened. But I have to admit, that not being abled to get it back up, was due to mistakes we made in the past.

But honestly I think, that this is just a symptom of a bigger root cause - The communication. We should have recognized how he felt about the partnership - we didn't, and therefore we haven't changed the way we worked with him. To me, we were his marketing department, but what he wanted was someone who manages the whole shop and comes with new ideas how to scale up and improve his processes.

Now I can only take learnings from this and do it better in the future. Here are some things I plan to change:
  • With ongoing partnerships schedule monthly meetings about how the client feels about our partnership, what his problems are and talk about his goals. Needs change and so does the work we do has to.
  • We have to change our work ethic again. We made good money with this client and became lazy. Furthermore, we put in a lot of hours, but aren't really efficient with our time. We talk too much work to less. I've to change that
  • I am thinking about a set time at which we have to be in the office. Something like not later than 8:30 am. On most days I'm in the office at 8 am, but some days not and Ole likes to come late. I do not think, that this is good for work ethic.
  • I want to be more involved in client communication. Previously Ole talked to the clients and I think, it would be good, if I would get more involved in it.
  • Do more cold calling, cold mailing, reaching out again. Like I said, we got lazy and haven't worked hard enough on getting enough new clients in the short term. This has to change. Only because we don't like cold calls, we are not allowed to not do them.

All I can say at the end is, that I haven't felt this bad in a long time and I honestly I do not want to feel like this ever again, but I know it will happen. I will make mistakes in the future, some less bad, some worse - This is the fastlane. I can only make mistakes, think about it, adjust and attack again with a better plan.

TL;DR: Lost our biggest client, because our communication was bad and we f*cked some things up.

Maybe someone can relate or has advice.

Would love to hear from you guys.

Maybe @Fox has an idea how to deal with it.

Best
- Tjark

Damn that sucks.

It looks like you know what happened here though and how to step things back up.

Sometimes it takes something rough like this happening to get us to snap out of a downward slope. As you said it seems you lost him to slowly dropping the standards/level of customer care.

I would leave him off for now and focus on what you can control - dial back in the work ethic, the service, and anything else possible. At the same time try replace him asap with other clients.

Down the line you could check back in and see if you can get him back but for now I think this is what it is and there will probably be a bunch of valuable lessons from it.

I am sure in a few months (if the lessons are learned) you can be in a much better spot and with even better clients/projects. Don't bash yourself up over it but at the same time look at fixing everything that could have been better.
 

tjark

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For cold calling, @Vilox has an inspiring cold calling progress thread where he sold websites. Maybe the posts in that thread will motivate you to start dialing.

You already seem to have a clear plan on how to avoid these things from happening in the future, no comments there, looks good.
Had a look at his thread. Really inspiring one. Will definitely dial some numbers next week.
 
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tjark

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Damn that sucks.

It looks like you know what happened here though and how to step things back up.

Sometimes it takes something rough like this happening to get us to snap out of a downward slope. As you said it seems you lost him to slowly dropping the standards/level of customer care.

I would leave him off for now and focus on what you can control - dial back in the work ethic, the service, and anything else possible. At the same time try replace him asap with other clients.

Down the line you could check back in and see if you can get him back but for now I think this is what it is and there will probably be a bunch of valuable lessons from it.

I am sure in a few months (if the lessons are learned) you can be in a much better spot and with even better clients/projects. Don't bash yourself up over it but at the same time look at fixing everything that could have been better.
Hi Fox,

thanks for your answer.

Yes, I took the weekend to think about it and how to improve things as fast as possible. Will discuss it with Ole tomorrow.

Next month we start with another e-commerce client. The good thing is, that we can apply all learnings on this upcoming project.

I will also check in on the client we lost in some time and see, if things improved for him.

I thought a bit more about the feeling, losing this client gave me: The hard part for me is, that most of the things which went wrong, we could have prevented with a little more experience. But experience comes from mistakes, too. I try to learn as much as possible from this.
 

tjark

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Update February 2021:

Time for my second update, because today is the last day of February.

I will keep this one a bit shorter, because the biggest change this month was the end of our partnership with the orchid producer, that I already wrote about in detail.

This was a major setback for us, but we are slowly getting back on track. But looking at the goals, I set, it didn't go so well

What were the goals this month:
- 15k revenue
- Finish the project for the lawyer
- Finish the new website for the client, I mentioned before.
- Win another 3 projects


Reaching the 15k in revenue was coupled to the orchid producer, because he made a good chunk of our revenue. The partnership ended on the 5th of February, so we only get paid around 1k for this month.

The project with the lawyer and the other projects aren't finished, too. Both clients do not want to start right and wait for some time. I try to convince the lawyer as soon as possible (Wrote her 2 times and will call her next week). The second one has the reason for not starting now. So this might take some time.

Which projects did we won?
The good news is, that we made some progress nonetheless. Our network pays off. A friend / agency owner came to us and asked if we can make a website for one of his clients. We get €1800 for this.

Additionally, a former fellow of mine works at a coworking space now and gave us a project, too. This is paid hourly and will make us 3000 to 3500.

Next thing is, that the client, who wanted changes last month wanted some more this month. This month was smaller, but around €1000.

We have some more things in the pipeline, that aren't 100% save so far, therefore I will not consider them as won. I will talk to two potential clients next week and Ole will talk to one as well.

Goals for next month:
- Make 7k in revenue (I know it's less than before, but there's no point in setting a goal we can't reach at the moment.)
- Win 4 new clients
- Get 400 visitors to our website (We are diving into SEO)

This month we focussed on processes a bit as well. We rebuild our own site and made it ready to dive in to SEO, what I currently do. On the other hand we set up "Meet Alfred" to automize our linked acquisition. In March, we will optimize this and introduce some more processes.

Best
- Tjark
 

tjark

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Update March 2021:

We bounced back pretty good.

After the relatively bad February this month was much better, but let's recap the goals real quick!

The goals were:
- Make 7k in revenue (I know it's less than before, but there's no point in setting a goal we can't reach at the moment.)

  • We made 7,547€ in revenue, what is pretty cool.
  • This money comes from two new clients, one larger project, that was now paid, an ongoing project and work for an existing client.

- Win 4 new clients
  • We started two new projects this month: One is an architect I reached out to via cold calling and the other client comes from a referral.
  • An old friend called me and wanted to start a project with us. This is our biggest project so far (7k) and will start next month.
  • Next month we will advertise for a C0VlD-19 test center nearby.
So we reached this goal, too, what is really awesome.

- Get 400 visitors to our website (We are diving into SEO)
  • We only got 206. We failed to reach this goal. SEO takes longer than I expected, but more than 200 visitors are still good and I'm happy with it.


Despite our goals a lot more happened this month. We plan to move more into e-commerce. Today is a meeting with a potential client and I have another client in line, who is interested. I will call him tomorrow.

We also started a new method for getting new clients: Recording personal videos and sending them to prospects. Haven't got a new client by this method till now, but the response rate is pretty good and we just started with it this week.

Meet Alfred hasn't been much of a success so far, but we will keep doing it, until we know for sure.

What are the goals for April?
- Make 10k in revenue
- Win 5 new clients
- Get 250 visitors to our website


These goals are slightly higher than last month, what is reasonable I think. If we manage to even come near 5 new clients or 10k in revenue, our agency would be in a much better place, because we would proof, that our concept works without depending on one client.
I shoot for only 250 visitors on our website this month, because SEO takes longer than expected.

Best
-Tjark
 
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tjark

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Update April 2021:

This was a very good month. We haven't earned so much money, but closed many projects, that will start soon.

The goals were:
- Make 10k in revenue

  • We made 7k flat in revenue
  • This means we haven't reached our goal, and it is even less than last month
  • But we closed a lot of projects. 15k are safe and one other project worth 10k is very likely too, but I will not count it yet.
  • In the next month I will focus on worth on closed projects and not on made revenue. I think this is a better measure for progress.

- Win 5 new clients
  • We got a lot more clients, what is really great.
  • One website for a dentist (worth 4000€)
  • An online shop (worth 4000€)
  • Another online shop (worth 2500€ with ongoing commission 5%)
  • Online Marketing for an app (worth 500€ upfront and 500€ monthly for six months, all in all 3500€)
  • Ads for an online shop (worth 1000€ per month)
  • Marketing for another online shop (worth 5% commission)
That's so great and there are more projects coming up.

- Get 250 visitors to our website (We are diving into SEO)
  • We got 332 visitors. This is almost 50% more than last month --> Really nice. Honestly I hadn't had much time for SEO this month (I know, there is no such thing as no time, only priorities. But I focussed on other things)

Last month I said, that we would like to focus more on e-commerce and like you can see at the new clients we did. We have a lot of fulfillment to do next month to produce good results for these clients.

Recording personal videos and sending them to prospects was a good idea. The feedback was great, and I scheduled a meeting with one client for next Monday. There was another meeting this month through this method, but the client wasn't a good fit, and we didn't want to work with him.

We decided to stop working with the C0VlD-19 test center early on, because their expectations were vastly different from what we were hired to do. I don't like to say "no" to a client, but sometimes it's not a good fit, and then it is better for both to not work together.

What are the goals for April?
- Close 20k worth new projects
- Win 5 new clients
- Get 400 visitors
- Get an intern


All in all a very good month and so much potential for the upcoming months. We want to hire an intern or and then maybe our first real employee, because we have so much to do and want to scale the agency.

Best
-Tjark
 

tjark

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Update May 2021:

This was a very good month again. We closed a good amount of money and wrote many invoices (Finally made more than 10k revenue). Next month will be even better.

The goals were:
- Close deals worth 20k or more

  • We only closed 14,200€ in projects. That's not 20k and even 800 bugs less than last month, what is obviously not good.
  • We changed processes to get more sales (I do sales, Ole does the projects). This way we both can specialize into one thing and get better at it.
  • I will go for 20k next month again.

- Win 5 new clients
  • One website for a car washer (1800€)
  • Online shop redesign upsell for existing client (1500€)
  • A big website project (10000€) (Our biggest project so far)
  • A small website (900€)
So in terms of getting new clients this month wasn't that great, but we got our biggest project so far. This is a huge win. Never thought someone would pay us 10k for a website.

- Get 400 visitors to our website (We are diving into SEO)
  • This is where we really shine this month. We got 757 new visitors to our website and I haven't even done SEO this month!
  • It shows how hard work pays off a lot later.
  • I really have to get into SEO again - This seems to be a good long term strategy.

- Get an intern
  • We got an intern, and he is helping a lot. He is honestly really good and can do many things, we wouldn't have the time for otherwise.

I followed my plan to send more videos to potential clients and I have two meetings coming up. One is tomorrow and the other one is on Wednesday. Hopefully I can close these deals. Those deals would be a huge boost and would confirm our new strategy to get more into e-commerce.

Next month is a really challenging month. I have to prove, that I can close deals with our new strategy and that we can grow with it, too. If I can manage to close those 20k we can really start to scale up.

What are the goals for June?
- Close 20k worth new projects
- Win 6 new clients
- Get 1000 visitors to our website
- Get into SEO again


This month finally some revenue came in. If we can reproduce it this month, we can use this money to scale our business.

Best
-Tjark
 

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Update May 2021:

This was a very good month again. We closed a good amount of money and wrote many invoices (Finally made more than 10k revenue). Next month will be even better.

The goals were:
- Close deals worth 20k or more

  • We only closed 14,200€ in projects. That's not 20k and even 800 bugs less than last month, what is obviously not good.
  • We changed processes to get more sales (I do sales, Ole does the projects). This way we both can specialize into one thing and get better at it.
  • I will go for 20k next month again.

- Win 5 new clients
  • One website for a car washer (1800€)
  • Online shop redesign upsell for existing client (1500€)
  • A big website project (10000€) (Our biggest project so far)
  • A small website (900€)
So in terms of getting new clients this month wasn't that great, but we got our biggest project so far. This is a huge win. Never thought someone would pay us 10k for a website.

- Get 400 visitors to our website (We are diving into SEO)
  • This is where we really shine this month. We got 757 new visitors to our website and I haven't even done SEO this month!
  • It shows how hard work pays off a lot later.
  • I really have to get into SEO again - This seems to be a good long term strategy.

- Get an intern
  • We got an intern, and he is helping a lot. He is honestly really good and can do many things, we wouldn't have the time for otherwise.

I followed my plan to send more videos to potential clients and I have two meetings coming up. One is tomorrow and the other one is on Wednesday. Hopefully I can close these deals. Those deals would be a huge boost and would confirm our new strategy to get more into e-commerce.

Next month is a really challenging month. I have to prove, that I can close deals with our new strategy and that we can grow with it, too. If I can manage to close those 20k we can really start to scale up.

What are the goals for June?
- Close 20k worth new projects
- Win 6 new clients
- Get 1000 visitors to our website
- Get into SEO again


This month finally some revenue came in. If we can reproduce it this month, we can use this money to scale our business.

Best
-Tjark

Well done on landing a 10k project - I know you missed the bigger revenue goal but that is still amazing progress. You guys are both killing it and cool to see the updates each month.
 
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Update June 2021:

This month was kind of mixed. Don't get me wrong, we made 12k in revenue, our best month so far, but there haven't many new projects. This is mostly due to my involvement in the projects. I had no time for sales. Only one projects came through sales activities I did last month. The other projects came on their own.

The goals were:
- Close deals worth 20k or more

  • One website for an accountant (1800€)
  • One SEO analysis for a client (700€)
  • Help with a website problem (540€)
  • Updates for a website (~500€)
  • Upgrading a web tool (900€)
This is only 4440€. We haven't even got close to the target 20k. This all comes down to me being involved in the projects and not doing sales. Next month I will only do sales and SEO. There will be no excuse. I will go for 20k again.

- Win 6 new clients
  • One website for an accountant
  • Help with a website problem
  • Updates for a website
  • Upgrading a web tool
Of the 5 projects I will count those 4 as new, because the SEO analysis was part of another bigger projects. The other projects are partly from clients, we already had, but are totally new projects. So we have missed our goal by two clients.

- Get 1000 visitors to our website
  • This is where we really shine this month. We got 756 new visitors to our website. This is one less than last month :D. But 756 is not 1000. This makes sense, because I haven't done SEO this month. I have already scheduled time for next month. This way, there won't be any excuses.
  • These consistent results without doing anything else are proving SEO as a strategy even more.

- Get into SEO again
  • I haven't done SEO for ourselves this month. Next month, I will focus on sales and SEO. I will not get caught up in clients projects!

I can leave the goals for next month almost like the ones for last month. Furthermore, I have to reduce SEO goals a bit, because the goal isn't realistic for next month.

What are the goals for June?
- Close 20k worth new projects
- Win 6 new clients
- Get 800 visitors to our website
- Get into SEO again


You can see this month was really mixed. A lot of money came in, but I haven't closed many new projects. Therefore, I will only work on sales the upcoming month. This should improve our sales a lot.

I also did some sales cales. This is way we have some offers out in the market. One of those projects could be worth 27k, what would be huge, but the decision time for those bigger projects is much longer. I also have an offer out for 10.5k. Getting this project is really realistic, because we have worked with the decision maker before.

Best
-Tjark
 

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Isn't it time to either hire someone to do the work for you, or someone who can handle the sales? It seems like time is your biggest constraint here.
 

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you mentioned monthly meetings to get up-to-speed....

we have a company who does work for us, anytime that we have a question, want to have a feature added, etc... we need to schedule a meeting to talk about it. then we need to schedule a meeting with another person (3 weeks later) to install it (they can push it to our server and we can install it, but they like to be holding our hand as we do it), and then they want to schedule a 90 minute training session to make sure we understand it.... when we can get most of it by simply following their clues...

the point is, don't schedule too many meetings... if you can make it a quick phone call (ask them, can you call them a certain day of the week, what times that it's ok to call, etc...) and then just give them a 3 minute phone call, don't make them put it into their schedule unless they want it.

Keep it simple... call them, Hi Dave, this is Johnny, I do your marketing for you - I'm wondering if you have anything you would like for me to change/upgrade/etc...? No? ok, have a great day, call me if you need anything!
 
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Update July 2021:

Again, a mixed month. This month sales were a lot better, but the revenue was not so good, but that's due to less closing in June and a delay in the 10k project.

The goals were:
- Close deals worth 20k or more

  • One website for a tattoo studio (2300€)
  • One website for a real estate agent (2500€)
  • Small website (700€)
  • Other website project (3000€)
  • Upgrading a web tool (950€)
Much better than last month with 9450€ in total, but still far from 20k a month. We are currently in negotiation with different people to get new projects going.

- Win 6 new clients

As you can see in the list above, we got 5 projects and those were all new projects, so we missed the target by one project.

- 800 visitors / get back into SEO
  • We only got 406 visits (Yes, less than last month) due to worse ranking on one important post.
  • I got back into SEO a bit, not enough but a bit.
I got the feeling, that we aren't moving forward. Every month is similar to the last month. We have to get momentum up again. In the past we took on too many projects, that can't be leveraged for bigger future project. This has to change. I also think @Tiago is right. We have to get help to grow our agency. Time is a huge issue at the moment. Therefore, we booked a coaching specially for sales and scaling up our agency. Also, Ole talked to a potential salesperson to help us with sales.

Next month, we will have a new intern, too. He will help us with SEO and potentially with some projects.

To grow fast and long term we will start focussing more on recurring revenue. This way we can build up momentum and carry money from last month to the next month. Maybe this will ease my mind a little, too. The end of every month I'm really stressed about the goals and I don't know how to make revenue the next month.

I will keep the goals for next month simpler. This way we can put more focus on it. Reaching one goal will support the other ones.

What are the goals for August?
- Close deals worth 20k or more
- Win 2 more ecommerce clients
- Get someone to help us with sales


Best
-Tjark
 

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Isn't it time to either hire someone to do the work for you, or someone who can handle the sales? It seems like time is your biggest constraint here.
Hi Tiago,

yes, I think you are right. We are currently talking to a salesperson, who could potentially help us.
 

tjark

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you mentioned monthly meetings to get up-to-speed....

we have a company who does work for us, anytime that we have a question, want to have a feature added, etc... we need to schedule a meeting to talk about it. then we need to schedule a meeting with another person (3 weeks later) to install it (they can push it to our server and we can install it, but they like to be holding our hand as we do it), and then they want to schedule a 90 minute training session to make sure we understand it.... when we can get most of it by simply following their clues...

the point is, don't schedule too many meetings... if you can make it a quick phone call (ask them, can you call them a certain day of the week, what times that it's ok to call, etc...) and then just give them a 3 minute phone call, don't make them put it into their schedule unless they want it.

Keep it simple... call them, Hi Dave, this is Johnny, I do your marketing for you - I'm wondering if you have anything you would like for me to change/upgrade/etc...? No? ok, have a great day, call me if you need anything!
That's a good point. Often I can't get reach customers to a scheduled time. Just calling in would be much easier.
 
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Hi Tiago,

yes, I think you are right. We are currently talking to a salesperson, who could potentially help us.

This is an interesting book that I think could help you. It's not about hiring per se, but about the philosophy of finding the right Who's that can solve your How's.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0867ZJ151/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Also, if you want to brainstorm about your business, just send me a DM. Happy to help wherever I can, I've found that two minds are better than one.
 

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This is an interesting book that I think could help you. It's not about hiring per se, but about the philosophy of finding the right Who's that can solve your How's.

Amazon.com: Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork eBook: Sullivan, Dan, Hardy, Benjamin: Kindle Store

Also, if you want to brainstorm about your business, just send me a DM. Happy to help wherever I can, I've found that two minds are better than one.
Thanks, I just ordered the book.
 

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Update August 2021:

THE BEST MONTH SO FAR! This month was great. We finally surpassed 20k in revenue. And we closed a deal worth 11k! I am actually working on the project right now and have a lot to do, but I didn't want to miss my update today. So lets jump right into it:

The goals were:
- Close deals worth 20k or more

  • One online shop for a supplement business (11000€)
  • Another online shop for hair styling products (1900€)
  • Upgrading a website of a previous client (3000€)
  • Upgrading a web tool (2500€)
The 11k project is great and we closed 18400€ in total. This is still not 20k, but a really good month and I am happy with it. Gotta go for the 20k next month again though.

- Win 2 new ecommerce clients

We got those two ecommerce clients! One is a small shop and the other one is the big one. Both are cool projects. We want to focus on bigger clients like the 11k on in the near future.

- Get someone to help us with sales
  • We hired a consultant/coach for 9k for 3 months. Its a one on one coaching and he helps us tremendously. Currently, we are working on our sales strategy and how to build a sales system. Hopefully I can tell you guys more in the next update.
This month, I have the feeling that we made a big step forward. We have to keep up the momentum and establish a system, so we can grow in the following months.

What are the goals for September?
- Finally crush the 20k closing mark
- Win 3 more ecommerce clients
-Start our sales system and make the first sale with it.

Best
-Tjark
 
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Update September 2021:

After the best month, one of the worst ones follows — at least if you look at the sales for last month. This is due to setting up the sales systems taking much longer, than I thought. Finding cold callers is harder than I thought. We are working on it and we are right before finishing it and the projects we are currently working on.

The goals were:
- Finally crush the 20k closing mark

  • One website for 1300€
  • One upsell for 500€
This is only 1800€ lol. Next month should be a lot more, because we've set up many projects, we can close next month.

- Win 3 new ecommerce clients

No new ecom clients. We almost did only fulfilment and worked on the sales system. We are right before escaping these ups and downs — at least I hope so.

- Start our sales system and make the first sale with it.
  • The sales system isn't finished yet.
We gotta get through it and finish the system and take on more clients again.

What are the goals for Oktober?
- 20k in sales
- Get at least 4 cold callers
- 3 new ecom clients

Best
-Tjark
 

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Update October 2021:

This month was pretty good again. Not too much revenue and closed deals, but a good improvement from last month.

The goals were:
- 20k in sales

Missed this goal again. We closed like 13k. 3 new projects and 2 higher prices with ongoing clients.

- Get at least 4 cold callers
We started with four, but one of them wasn't good. It was not just how he called itself, he was also really unreliable (Late to meetings, not learning about the products, etc.).

- 3 new ecom clients
It was just one new ecom client.

What are the goals for November?
This month was much better and I will go for the same goals next month, but I will replace getting 4 cold callers (we reached that one) with Making the first sale through cold calls:
- 20k in sales
- Make the first sale with our new sales system
- 3 new ecom clients


Best
-Tjark
 

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Update November 2021:

Our new sales system seems to work. We got a lot of sales Calls out of it. I think it have been seven so far. 2 of the were not a good fit. One said no, one yes and 3 follow ups.

The goals were:
- 20k in sales

- Closed one project with 10k with our new sales system.
- One other project is right before being closed.

So yeah, only 10k this month, but it's still good, because we get proof for the process.


- Get the first sale with our new sales system
- achivied that one

- 3 new ecom clients
- No, probably next month

What are the goals for December?
We got some proof for our process and thats great. New we have to scale and put more effort into it.
- 20k in sales
- Make the 3 sales with our new sales system
- 3 new ecom clients


Best
-Tjark
 
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Update December 2021:

Sorry for posting yes update a bit late. I took time off over Christmas and new year. It was a good time to reflect on the past year and set new goals for the new year. But we are back at it and from now on the updates will come on time.

First, I have to make a correction for November. Sadly, the 10k client I wrote about in the last update, hasn't become a client in the last second. He said yes in the sales call, and we even scheduled a kick-off meeting, but he didn't come to the meeting and since then, I haven't heard from him. That's a shame. Maybe I can get him to become a client, but at the moment he is not.

But nonetheless, the December was a good month. Not necessarily in terms of new projects, but revenue wise and the second half of the month we took a lot of time to work out a strategy for 2022.

Maybe It should have attributed it to the goals, that the last 10 days of December almost no one is working, but let's look into it:

The goals were:
- 20k in sales
- Make the 3 sales with our new sales system
- 3 new ecom clients

20k in sales

again missed. We got 2 new clients: one is actually an e-com client. It's a new online shop for someone wo came through a recommendation. The project size was 3.5k. The other project is kind of e-com, I guess. As I think about it, lead generation perhaps is a better description. In Germany for most jobs, you don't have to go to college for, you do an apprenticeship. It usually goes for two to three years. Afterwards you are a so called "Geselle". When you are "Geselle" and have some experience in your job, you can become a "Meister" (Master). Pretty similiar to bachelor -> master in college. Our client offers a "Meister" course and we will help him to fill it. I think you can book the slots online and already pay, what makes it a lot like e-com.

But we still failed this goal with only 9.5k in sales instead of 20k.

Make the 3 sales with our new sales system
All new sales came through network and not our sales system, what is obviously bad. We will try this system with a new approach in January and see how it will go.

We almost had one client with it, but due to bad luck, he is not a client yet. He said yes to working together, and he only needed to confirm the offer via email. As he said yes, he already told me, that it may take some time, because they all had contact to someone infected with corona and everyone has to get tested and maybe in quarantine.

One week later I called him and asked him how the test went and if he's ready to sign the offer. And guess what... He and his whole family (it's a family business) got corona and his dad had to get to hospital. If this hasn't happened I am sure, he would be a client by now.

3 new ecom clients
Only one. We have to work on our system to make it better.

What are the goals for January?

We wrote s plan for entire 2022, and we need 13400€ in revenue in January and this are like 5 new clients. So I will set this as the goal. I set 20k in sales per month as a goal the last months and it never worked. It's time to change the approach and take a different strategy.
- 5 new clients
- Make the 3 sales with our new sales system
- 3 new ecom clients


Best
-Tjark
 

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