Out of curiosity tony_d what made you give up on this method? 6 figure profits in a year is really good I think.
Also, when you used to do this, did you close the sales on the phone or met with the clients at all?
That guy on that thread is meeting in person (which I think rises up the conversion rate a lot).
I am asking because I am geographically restricted to meet clients I want to target to sell and closing on the phone would be perfect. Just asking what worked for you, so I can do something similar myself, thanks!
I moved on from this method when I scaled up another model that makes '6 figure profits' look like chicken feed
We did selling 100% over the phone - never met a single client. Therefore, the entire English speaking world was our market.
Conversion rates varied, for the most part, only by sales person - some sales guys would convert 20%, some would convert 75%. Needless to say, the low performers were offloaded pretty rapidly, because they were costing more money in lost sales than they were earning me in gained sales.
Do you need to do a contract/agreement with them?
How do they pay you? paypal?
Do you do the re-work first, then call them to see if they are interested? Or call them to see if they are interested first, then do the re-work? Because it takes time to do the re-work, so you don't want to spend all that time just to get a not interested answer from them (or not available, voicemail, etc). You can lie and tell them their new website is already done.
Does your method work if you scrape directories/manta for businesses that don't have a website and then offer to create a website for them? Or does it only work if you target businesses with bad websites?
Do you worry about saturation? It seems like there's a lot of people who do websites out there. How do you make yourself stand out?
I'm just getting started with this method so no success yet. Is it normal to get a lot of not available, voicemail, etc?
Most of your questions really just need one reply - and I'm sorry if it sounds offensive (as with any of this post), but you evidently didn't read it the first time I wrote it, so I'll write it again:
There are no rules. Don't ask me. I don't have a list of rules for you to follow. Go out there and do something - make it up as you go!
As for doing the re-work first or not - it's a very simple decision for me, because I make it the same way I make other operating decisions; that is, on the basis of dollars sent out the door vs dollars back in the door.
If I put $5 in and get $100 back by doing the re-work first and then cold-calling the client, then that's a good thing. (
Do the math yourself - designers working full time for me for about $500/mth were tasked with doing 3 websites per 2 days. Cost was well under $20 each, even if you include amortized cost for the person hunting for prospects - ie, shitty websites).
For the sales that I did myself, my cost per conversion was almost never more than $40-$50, even factoring in the guy who does the website setup/server stuff for clients who buy.
That said - one thing we did do was a quick call to the business before we did the re-work - simply to see if they answer the phone and are still in business. If those two criteria were satisfied, they needed a new website as far as I was concerned.
You need to remove the personal attachment to it... if you think it's about design, you're 100% mistaken, and you'll be exactly like the other 10 million 'designers' out there who have no work - while people with teams like mine out-sell you and out-bill you 1,000:1.
As for saturation, and other things you could 'worry about' - I don't bother worrying about all that shit.
If I made a list of all the things in the world I could worry about, or even just the things I could worry about that relate to this operating model, I would be so paralyzed by fear that I couldn't even get out of bed in the morning.
I suspect you're in that spot right now.
F**k that. I just get going and do it, and deal with whatever happens when it happens.
The key, that perhaps you are missing, is that
you need to start before you can see the end.
It seems like you're quite risk averse, and this is neither a method nor an industry for people who are risk averse.
If you ooze confidence with the things you say, and importantly, the things you
do, people
will do business with you.
