The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Zero to $3K in 100 Days: Starting my local SEO agency.

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Dr. Fastlane

Amor Fati!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
173%
Jul 20, 2018
49
85
Gurgaon
I had read the "CHECKLIST: How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency & Hit $5K in Less than 90 Days" thread a while back. Got caught up with some personal issues for sometime, but finally managed to get back here and stumbled on that thread again.

My Advantages:
  • Am pretty f**ing good at SEO
  • Have some SEO assets (PBN, news sites) around the law niche, so I most likely can do that very economically
  • Know a tiny bit of python for simple web automation tasks.
  • Live in a third world country with a large English speaking population. This would make it easier to scale things and outsource easily.
My Obstacles:
  • Terrible. Terrible work ethic. I am working on it. Woke up at 4am and got started at 4.30am today. On an average I only work 10-12 hours a week.
  • Low capital. I am in a third world country at the moment, don't make much. I might have maybe $100/week to put towards this.
  • Suck at sales. I have never sold anything to anyone I already didn't know (dropship site doesn't count as sales experience). All of my past freelancing gigs were with people I already knew, or people that approached me due to recommendations from their friends. Having a bit of an accent wouldn't help me either. Maybe am overthinking this. Anyhow, I am trying to avoid getting on the phone as much as possible.
Progress so far:
  • Finalized a name
  • I am no gfx designer, but decided to do the logo myself and save some money. Yes, I am a cheapskate.
  • Setup an email + built the basic site (home/services/contact).
  • Got a US based VOIP number just in case someone does decide to talk on the phone etc.
Next Steps:
  • Figure out the different SEO packages, pricing in particular
  • Brainstorm a well-defined sales process, write the email sales copy etc.
  • Setup a tool like SuiteCRM to keep track of things
  • Since I already have web assets around the lawyer niche, I was thinking about going after local lawyers in US. Make a list of 50 lawyers in 10 different cities that look like they could use my services.
  • Setup the bank account + paypal. Second option is to use 2CO. I don't know if 2CO allows individuals to singup. Opening a bank account in the name of the firm is going to take some time.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

maikooo

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
84%
Dec 7, 2018
164
137
I had read the "CHECKLIST: How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency & Hit $5K in Less than 90 Days" thread a while back. Got caught up with some personal issues for sometime, but finally managed to get back here and stumbled on that thread again.

My Advantages:
  • Am pretty f**ing good at SEO
  • Have some SEO assets (PBN, news sites) around the law niche, so I most likely can do that very economically
  • Know a tiny bit of python for simple web automation tasks.
  • Live in a third world country with a large English speaking population. This would make it easier to scale things and outsource easily.
My Obstacles:
  • Terrible. Terrible work ethic. I am working on it. Woke up at 4am and got started at 4.30am today. On an average I only work 10-12 hours a week.
  • Low capital. I am in a third world country at the moment, don't make much. I might have maybe $100/week to put towards this.
  • Suck at sales. I have never sold anything to anyone I already didn't know (dropship site doesn't count as sales experience). All of my past freelancing gigs were with people I already knew, or people that approached me due to recommendations from their friends. Having a bit of an accent wouldn't help me either. Maybe am overthinking this. Anyhow, I am trying to avoid getting on the phone as much as possible.
Progress so far:
  • Finalized a name
  • I am no gfx designer, but decided to do the logo myself and save some money. Yes, I am a cheapskate.
  • Setup an email + built the basic site (home/services/contact).
  • Got a US based VOIP number just in case someone does decide to talk on the phone etc.
Next Steps:
  • Figure out the different SEO packages, pricing in particular
  • Brainstorm a well-defined sales process, write the email sales copy etc.
  • Setup a tool like SuiteCRM to keep track of things
  • Since I already have web assets around the lawyer niche, I was thinking about going after local lawyers in US. Make a list of 50 lawyers in 10 different cities that look like they could use my services.
  • Setup the bank account + paypal. Second option is to use 2CO. I don't know if 2CO allows individuals to singup. Opening a bank account in the name of the firm is going to take some time.
Thanks for the progress thread! Wish you success!!
 

Chapas

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
278%
Nov 23, 2014
336
935
34
Good luck with the journey!

Don't worry about the accent. I have one as well and so far it has not caused me problems. Play it to your advantage!

What VOIP are you using? I set up Sonetel and it is absolutely horrible. Could really use another service.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Dr. Fastlane

Amor Fati!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
173%
Jul 20, 2018
49
85
Gurgaon
Good luck with the journey!

Don't worry about the accent. I have one as well and so far it has not caused me problems. Play it to your advantage!

What VOIP are you using? I set up Sonetel and it is absolutely horrible. Could really use another service.
I have a pretty thick Indian accent as you can hear in the video below.

For VoIP I am just going to start with Skype and then move to ringcentral or something.



Day zero:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OzqtUQSYow
 

Peter59

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
67%
May 8, 2019
3
2
Vlotho, Northern Germany
Hi Dr.Fastlane ,don't worry about your accent if you have got what a customer wants its irrelevant,with most Indian guys they speak too fast and that makes them hard to understand.You speak slow enough and I find you easy to understand. I am an English guy living in Germany and I went simply cold calling with my English accent in German. I on purpose stayed away from lawyers dentists doctors for the simple reason they usually have lots of people trying to get their business. I started by asking someone who had set up a beauty studio in a hotel I regularly visited,I got the business. I looked at her existing website using SEO PowerSuite she had hardly any visitors a total of 6 per month which was not surprising after looking at her website. I told her of her sites statistics I did not knock her down or belittle her she was concentrating on her business not website.My second customer actually rang me up,I had done 12 youtube videos on SEO Google places etc all in German and they were all on page one of google due to my advanced SEO work at the time. The custoer owned a puppet making shop I went and did a video for her as well and all went great I got paid on time .I have just googled it and despite the fact it is 6 yrs old it is still on page one of google over here in Germany.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8JjfyB3wMI. There are plenty of odd jobs trades that want a website they are the low hanging fruit you can get easily.
 

Dr. Fastlane

Amor Fati!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
173%
Jul 20, 2018
49
85
Gurgaon
What does 8 hours of work consist of?

I have one client currently whom I charge by the hour since I didn't have enough time to take over his marketing campaign entirely earlier.

I am working for this client currently and whatever time I have left I work on my site, strategy.
 

Danczyk

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Feb 20, 2019
55
64
Belarus
I would worry more about finding some other clients. One client isn't 8 hours a day work my friend.

I checked your site. It looks generic to be honest. Why don't you add some more content and pictures? I see you have done it with divi so it's highly customisable. There are tens of great themes around SEO or agency niche so buy them or copy their designs.

And you want to be in law niche, which is great, but it's nowhere to be found on your site. I would be more specific. And cheap PBNs do more harm then goodin the long term right now so I would recommend strongly against it.

Your accent is more than fine dude so rest assured that it has zero negative impact on your pitch/sales. However your lack of confidence has. If you are really good at SEO you have zero excuses to be afraid. I hope you make some decent money soon and update us.
 

Dr. Fastlane

Amor Fati!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
173%
Jul 20, 2018
49
85
Gurgaon
I would worry more about finding some other clients. One client isn't 8 hours a day work my friend.

I checked your site. It looks generic to be honest. Why don't you add some more content and pictures? I see you have done it with divi so it's highly customisable. There are tens of great themes around SEO or agency niche so buy them or copy their designs.

And you want to be in law niche, which is great, but it's nowhere to be found on your site. I would be more specific. And cheap PBNs do more harm then goodin the long term right now so I would recommend strongly against it.

Your accent is more than fine dude so rest assured that it has zero negative impact on your pitch/sales. However your lack of confidence has. If you are really good at SEO you have zero excuses to be afraid. I hope you make some decent money soon and update us.

Thanks for the feedback. The website was quickly put together to get approval from 2CO. I plan to refine it soon.

When I said I will be working on my site and strategy to your earlier question, I failed to mention that I will be reaching out to local businesses via personalized emails. Maybe in the near-future I might even start cold calling. I don't intend to do the SEO myself after the first few clients since I have access to cheap human resources due to my geographical location. I would rather make slightly less profit on my revenue and have more time to learn and grow on a personal level.

Since am still open to different niches, so I would probably have additional landing pages focusing on the different niches instead of having one niche be the sole focus. Once I zero-in on a single niche, I would make that the focus of my site. But am still keeping my options open until then. I am also planning to create niche specific SEO videos and/or case studies to help brand myself as an authority on the subject.

The one client I have has six sites, so I could generate some revenue for the next few months. That being said, I understand what you're saying and couldn't agree more, one client is not a business.

I am fairly confident in my knowledge of the technical side of things, just need to get my sales worked out.

Most PBN services sold are either crappy or too overpriced. I find it much better to build my own. I am not going to invest in a personal PBN until I have my niche figured out for obvious reasons.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Danczyk

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Feb 20, 2019
55
64
Belarus
I failed to mention that I will be reaching out to local businesses via personalized emails.

3rd world country businesses suck. They generally pay you a couple of bucks and expect the world for it. I ditched all cheap a$$ clients for good. You spend the same time and effort to get a client so why not find one in US/UK/CA and also get paid 5 times more.

Since am still open to different niches, so I would probably have additional landing pages focusing on the different niches instead of having one niche be the sole focus.

Selecting a niche helps you speak their language, know their pain points. I know many westerners get daily generic/spam emails from Indians with SEO service offers. They don't even qualify those companies whether they could help them or not. Spray and pray. If you position yourself as an expert in one niche this will put you way ahead of the curve.
 

Dr. Fastlane

Amor Fati!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
173%
Jul 20, 2018
49
85
Gurgaon
3rd world country businesses suck. They generally pay you a couple of bucks and expect the world for it. I ditched all cheap a$$ clients for good. You spend the same time and effort to get a client so why not find one in US/UK/CA and also get paid 5 times more.



Selecting a niche helps you speak their language, know their pain points. I know many westerners get daily generic/spam emails from Indians with SEO service offers. They don't even qualify those companies whether they could help them or not. Spray and pray. If you position yourself as an expert in one niche this will put you way ahead of the curve.
When I said local businesses I meant local businesses in US not local in terms of my location. I have dealt with domestic clients in the past and did not enjoy the experience to put it mildly lol
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Dr. Fastlane

Amor Fati!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
173%
Jul 20, 2018
49
85
Gurgaon
Sorry for not updating the thread in a timely fashion.

Closed a $500 client for reputation management. Right now am basing my fees in terms of my input. Maybe once I have more experience I will go for value based feed where I charge them based on the value I bring to their business.

I tried cold calling too. Absolutely hated it. I gave up on the first day.

Right now, am harvesting websites from Google results. I made a list of 300 largest US cities based on population. Inserted my target niche in front of each city state combination.

Harvesting only first 100 results for now. Going to scrape emails from these urls and send them an email talking about a video audit I did for their site. Anybody who replies will get a video audit done and sent to their email.

If this works, I can scale super fast since most of the process is already automated, except the video audit obviously.

On the offline front, I stopped working from home. Shifted to a private cabin for 4 people in a co-working space. Also have a friend who works in the cabin, so it doesn't get awfully boring. I can say I am much more productive at the co-working space. Mainly because I now have a fixed time to get up and get ready for work.
 

BlackMagician

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
236%
Jul 18, 2018
560
1,322
Mumbai, India
When I said local businesses I meant local businesses in US not local in terms of my location. I have dealt with domestic clients in the past and did not enjoy the experience to put it mildly lol
Well, I love domestic clients. They are very easy to talk. Very friendly, and willing to listen when technical points mentioned. They understand that if i help them get 25k increase in profit, they are willing to pay 10% of that. It's just how we approach, who we approach and our upfront value.

I haven't got a single client whom i say i didn't enjoy the experience working with.
 

Dr. Fastlane

Amor Fati!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
173%
Jul 20, 2018
49
85
Gurgaon
Well, I love domestic clients. They are very easy to talk. Very friendly, and willing to listen when technical points mentioned. They understand that if i help them get 25k increase in profit, they are willing to pay 10% of that. It's just how we approach, who we approach and our upfront value.

I haven't got a single client whom i say i didn't enjoy the experience working with.

Good for you. I just don't see how I can get to respectable revenue levels serving just 15-20 clients in the domestic market.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

BlackMagician

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
236%
Jul 18, 2018
560
1,322
Mumbai, India

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top