Journey to $10K/mo in 12 months from scratch with building websites

royserpa said:

I dont have an agency as ive never been a fan of working for someone else's projects. Though, i work on my stuff and usually end up selling the sites for around 20x monthly profit

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Hi, am interested in this, care to point me to any resource?

Any updates @jonsnow2019 ? I am waiting for your updates more than game of thrones episodes

You are missing since 1st GoT episode. Are you fighting white walkers?

April Goal: $3000
Earned so far: $3430
Spent: ~$1100

- This month I did it!
- Since my employee left, I did a lot myself, so had little time. I also experimented with the fb campaign project on my own and let the 2 assistants go.
- In the meantime I cashed $300 from finishing the $600 project, got another $630 from the store guy for maintenance. I didn't want to do maintenance plans but he accepted to pay upfront for a number of hours and this works for me. Also got $300 deposit for the newest project (another $600 website).
- Laravel project is going slower and I got $2500 more to receive, probably in May.

tombraider9 said:

Do you have breakdown payment between fb and twitter for March and April so far.

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I stopped doing stats since when I stopped cold emailing. It's not really necessary at this point, because there's just a handful of projects. So, the laravel project is a lead from the old email list($4000), the newest project ($600) and the store guy ($1400) are from twitter, the smaller project I finished was referred by fb lead ($600), also the 1k project was from fb. $0 from reddit so far, but got some promising leads.

Faceless Men said:

I am waiting for your updates more than game of thrones episodes

You are missing since 1st GoT episode. Are you fighting white walkers?

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Haha, need good warriors to hire and they're hard to find. Wish I had some dragonglass and fighters like Tormund.

jonsnow2019 said:

Yesterday I found the AMA written by @yakuzaemme and I couldn't believe how much value he is giving, insanely useful information. I got inspired to start my plan NOW not later. This will keep me focused and hopefully get some feedback on my progress that can benefit others too.

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What AMA are you referring to?

sonyhp said:

What AMA are you referring to?

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He is pointing this one: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/q...eurship-business-advertising-clients.1044214/

May Goal: $4000
Earned so far: $0

New month, new goal. This shouldn't be hard, because most of the income is already on paper from last month's projects.

- Still trying to find a new employee.
- Stopped fb ads project. The client told me he lost less than when he did it himself, but still a loss. For me it's an improvement, but I'll try to find someone who is better at this while learning.
- Laravel project - slow revisions phase.
- New skype call tomorrow for a new store. Will aim for 1k+.

jonsnow2019

All right so let me see if I got this right in my head.

First is prospecting which in the beginning you started out with emails and now you're doing a mixture of Twitter and Facebook.

What sort of messages are you sending to potential clients on these platforms?

Also...

How do you determine whether or not they are a good person to target?

From there once you have the person interested do you move the conversation to Skype?

Skype

When on a Skype call all you're doing is showing the person what their new site can look at and all of the things which makes their current site suck right?

Next, you send them a form to get the information about their business and once they send that back to you then you begin building out the website.

I'm just trying to get a clearer picture of the steps. Also, this is a great follow on.

I wish you the best success.

jonsnow2019 said:

May Goal: $4000
Earned so far: $0

New month, new goal. This shouldn't be hard, because most of the income is already on paper from last month's projects.

- Still trying to find a new employee.
- Stopped fb ads project. The client told me he lost less than when he did it himself, but still a loss. For me it's an improvement, but I'll try to find someone who is better at this while learning.
- Laravel project - slow revisions phase.
- New skype call tomorrow for a new store. Will aim for 1k+.

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I haven't gone through all of your journey yet ( in the process ), but I'm curious, what languages are you programming with and how many years of experience have you got?

Asking, because I've just started learning to code and wondering how much I need to know/learn to be able to get freelance gigs. Would you be so kind and give few pointers for a beginner who wants to learn a skill to freelance?

Thanks and best of luck in your journey as well!

Updates:

- Good news, my employee returned. Still part-time though.
- Closed a woocommerce project (agreed on 1k). Deposit should hit bank account this week. Will update then.
- Got a new VA (the only one atm).
- Had to partially pay the laravel programmer to keep him motivated because the project is delaying.

teabwoi264 said:

and now you're doing a mixture of Twitter and Facebook.

What sort of messages are you sending to potential clients on these platforms?

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Fb, twitter and reddit. You can see twitter and fb methods somewhere in the first 5 pages of this thread. On fb, I sometimes just add them and no message. Then I post something that they can see on the timeline. Other times I just comment in groups and they message me. When I contact someone directly it's related to a specific issue, I don't try to sell anything in the beginning, just try to help and keep it simple.

teabwoi264 said:

How do you determine whether or not they are a good person to target?

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Depends, if it's twitter, they usually ask for a website so I know they're a prospect. On fb I look for small active groups of business owners, so it's easy to weed them out from there, check profile, check website and so on.

teabwoi264 said:

From there once you have the person interested do you move the conversation to Skype?

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Yes.

teabwoi264 said:

When on a Skype call all you're doing is showing the person what their new site can look at and all of the things which makes their current site suck right?

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I ask them questions at first. Fishing for issues. Then I make my pitch based on that. When they're getting hooked I start showing them websites or asking them for websites they like and start gathering data from there.

teabwoi264 said:

Next, you send them a form to get the information about their business and once they send that back to you then you begin building out the website.

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I gather most of that data on the skype call and put it in a spreadsheet. So next I either send them a payable proposal or contract.

teabwoi264 said:

I wish you the best success.

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Thanks!

Wooten said:

what languages are you programming with and how many years of experience have you got?

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My main language is javascript but most of the projects are wp, so I don't code much really, mostly I focus on sales. 5 years of experience.

Wooten said:

Would you be so kind and give few pointers for a beginner who wants to learn a skill to freelance?

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Start building small projects that you like and help friends. Keep building bigger and better stuff. You'll learn a lot while doing that. When I first started freelancing I was accepting the bad jobs that nobody wanted just to get the ball rolling with positive reviews. It's definitely tough in the beginning. Pitch clients on upwork differently than the crowd. Offer free samples.

Hey Jonsnow2019,

What payment providers you use to collect money from clients?
Do you make a page on the website to receive payments from clients?

Thank you so much for your valuable information. That's very helpful.

Keep it up. Good luck on your journey

What an amazing journey and hustle!!!! by the way, what platform do you use to host the client's wp website and do you use the same hosting for all the clients or they provide the hosting?

Hey. Thanks for your journey update. Could you please tell me if for facebook, you are checking just the group members data one by one and also their website as well. And then you send them a friend request so that they can see your post on your timeline? I have seen that in this thread but it's still not competely clear.
If you join 10 groups then to whom you message as all message will be sent to message request instead of direct message. Please respond or can pm me if in any case don't want to explain here in details. Thanks a lot for your motivational journey once again.

Awesome journey!

Zharf said:

What payment providers you use to collect money from clients?

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And.co Pro

Manoj Aryal said:

what platform do you use to host the client's wp website and do you use the same hosting for all the clients or they provide the hosting?

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They provide the hosting.

tombraider9 said:

you are checking just the group members data one by one and also their website as well. And then you send them a friend request so that they can see your post on your timeline?

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I check based on what they write in the group. I try to engage in comments and contribute. Besides a few that seem decent prospects I also add randomly, maybe 20 people per day max so I don't reach limits. It's not a set in stone process, think of it of plain old networking, you try to strike conversations, be helpful and hope that some people will want to work with you.

tombraider9 said:

If you join 10 groups then to whom you message

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I usually comment, I don't message directly, unless they need something specific. I look for issues, ideally website related. If I don't find issues I just post something to get noticed (but not being pushy nor spammy) and if someone reacts I'll add them.

May Goal: $4000
Earned so far: $3225
Spent so far: $2118

- Today we deployed the laravel project. Got the rest of the money ($2500).
- Friday I got the deposit of $500 for the new woocommerce project + $225 for the basic SEO package ($450 on completion). This is a $1450 project.
- In case you are wondering why I spent so much in the first 2 weeks of the month - this is mostly cost from last month, I paid the laravel dev ($2000). This was my biggest project yet ($4000) which I split 50%-50% with the dev.
- I'm pretty happy that the goal is 80% fulfilled and I have almost 3 weeks left.
- I found someone who's decent with Google Ads so I'm starting to push ppc packages. Waiting for response from store guy.
- Got a skype call tomorrow for a niche website. I'm excited because I want to try building niche websites too and I'll definitely learn something.

Faceless Men said:

Any updates @jonsnow2019 ? I am waiting for your updates more than game of thrones episodes

You are missing since 1st GoT episode. Are you fighting white walkers?

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Hahaha MAN! I was just to post the same, which is actually a true fact, Ive putting more faith and following THIS johnsnow than the HBO one, to be honest. The monthly episodes are getting way too excited. Looking forward for the next epo... report.

Very doable plan. That is exactly how I started. We now develop over 50 sites per month between$1500 and $10000. Keep at it. If you put in a real 50hr work week consistently you will easily attain that goal.

Could you tell me appeox how many groups you have joined so far and on avg, how many posts in a day? Thanks

SandyBox said:

Looking forward for the next epo... report.

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Thanks for watching!

Bajanman said:

If you put in a real 50hr work week

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Yeah, some weeks close to 70 hours in the beginning :S

tombraider9 said:

how many groups you have joined so far and on avg, how many posts in a day?

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Around 50 groups over 3 months. Perhaps 100 posts in the same period, not counting followup comments and messages. But I think stats don't matter that much for a small company, just hustle focusing on establishing trust. Maybe in a big one, where the funnel is huge and you got enough data for predictable revenue.

jonsnow2019 said:

May Goal: $4000
Earned so far: $3225
Spent so far: $2118

- Today we deployed the laravel project. Got the rest of the money ($2500).
- Friday I got the deposit of $500 for the new woocommerce project + $225 for the basic SEO package ($450 on completion). This is a $1450 project.
- In case you are wondering why I spent so much in the first 2 weeks of the month - this is mostly cost from last month, I paid the laravel dev ($2000). This was my biggest project yet ($4000) which I split 50%-50% with the dev.
- I'm pretty happy that the goal is 80% fulfilled and I have almost 3 weeks left.
- I found someone who's decent with Google Ads so I'm starting to push ppc packages. Waiting for response from store guy.
- Got a skype call tomorrow for a niche website. I'm excited because I want to try building niche websites too and I'll definitely learn something.

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Hi Jon,
Congratulations on the sales. I'm glad to see that you are offering smaller packages to your customers. Some web developers start out with only premium priced packages, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't offer premium packages, but in my experience, most customers have no idea what they want and contact you only because of the low price point. Those customers will usually end up purchasing a much higher priced package after they see the value in it and after you have had a thorough discussion with the customer about their ACTUAL needs!! Keep up the good work and keep posting on this thread about your journey. I think there is alot of interest and that this conversation can help alot of people.

ps. Send me a PM when you get a chance. I think I can show you how to cut your development costs by up to 50%. (I've been doing this for a long time and might be able to show you a thing or two.....)