You want something? Go get it. Period. My journey to riches by making people buy websites.

Background
So, i've been doing IM for a couple of years before I knew what IM really was. I had made a few websites before..but never knew how to monetize them.
I came up with a few blackhat methods to make money with ebay and youtube..but they were temporary.

Since i've found this site, I've tried several different methods. I've ranked a couple sites but its always been short lived.
I've had some success with affiliate marketing, but the affiliates never seem to stay consistent. They shave or close shop all together.

I've been so frustrated every time I think I have a handle on something that will allow me to IM full time, I get the rug pulled out from under me.

Which leads us to the now. I'm not fucking around anymore. My favorite musical artist inspired me in one of his interviews. "I wanted to see what happened if I put 110% of myself into one thing." Live or die. Just take something you want, and go after it relentlessly.

I've become very adept at a few things in my life. Those being: Building quality looking websites quickly, mashing out graphics on photoshop with impressive speed, and sales.
No-brainer..i'm going to mash them all together.

Method
Started out cold calling people in the local area who had shit sites offering them my services.
It works ok, but it is sometimes difficult to get through to people that they NEED to have a better site. Some of these sites..I shit you not, still have latin placeholder text. Some of them havn't been updated since dial-up was a thing.

I started smashing my head against the wall with KNOWING I can help them but they refuse. Maybe my lack of sales skill? IDK. I've been pretty successful in other sales ventures when working for other people..but who knows.
It also could be the average income in my area. Average income is about $32K a year.

After reading a few threads on this thread that also inspired me, I decided to use my skills to the fullest. I'm making sites before I try to sell. This way I can offer something more tangible to the client.

What I'm doing right now starting out:
1. Find websites locally that are shit. (Super easy task)
2. Make them a better website, sweet and sexy. Mobile friendly.
3. E-mail the client explaining that I'm a local resident that enjoys making websites for local clients. Explain why their site sucks and how it could be costing them money.
4. Sell them the website for $500. If they need or want my hosting i'll provide it for free for a year.
5. People who don't respond, I will be calling after a few days to follow up.
6. People who decline, I will save their name in my failed list..then call them up 2 weeks later. At that point I'll tell them, the site is made, and I don't want it to go to waste. If they like the site..just let me know what you feel like its worth. If its anything reasonable its theirs.

I'll also be trying to tie in offering a website rental to lower income businesses. $30 a month to rent the site to avoid putting up a lot of cash up front.
Of course once they have the site, I can then offer up-sales.

Taking a couple things I've learned from IM:
I plan on adding all my clients to a mailing list and sending them a bi-weekly email giving them some tips and offering my services.
I'll also be split testing everything. From how I write my e-mail, to my scripts for calling, my prices, and so on.

If I can make $3k a month doing this...it would be life changing. I've never made more than $1500 a month on a steady basis my whole life..and I'm almost 30 years old. (Fuck me right?)

Anyway..i'm not giving up on this. I'm not going to get distracted with some other easy method that looks nice. I'm going to tweak and tweak until this works.

Will post updates regularly.

What I accomplished today: Knocked out 3 websites and sent e-mails to those clients. I'm getting ready to knock one more out before I go to bed.

I would recommend reading up more on cold calling and refining your skills --- definitely worth it...especially spin sales.

Hi man,

Nice plan, I have also got inspired recently by similar threads and thinking about getting into this.

Do you use wordpress for these sites or just html templates (you're making them pretty fast)?

cheers

I'm using wordpress. It helps with the plugins to get custom forms if needed easily, and allows me to edit themes easy too.
Plus the client can update the site easily themselves if they really wanted to.
Note that my sites look pretty awesome. I'm in a unique position that I learned how to make custom graphics in photoshop super quickly from one of my old jobs. So an average person who has some photoshop knowledge wouldn't be able to get sites out this fast.

And thanks Ben. I've read a lot about it and have done a lot of sales before. I was the top seller in the region for a company I used to work for..but they paid me shit. $5 a sale. lmao.

It just seems like the local business niche is a bit of a different monster. Some of these people are old and hate technology..it baffles me. One guy literally said.."that sounds great but i'm not into that internet stuff. My son made the website and i'll keep it. I don't want to deal with online stuff".

I overcame his objection and then he fell back on "I'm planning on selling my business off in a year anyway i'm too old". Then I tried to tell him how the next owner would pay him more if his business was doing better..but he wasn't having it lol.

I'll keep at it and split test. With every failure comes knowledge.

When you call are you talking about the features and benefits?

IE You aren't making them a website. You are making them more money month after month with a one time investment in a modern website.

Basically letting them know that people search for their business online. When they see a shitty website, they aren't likely to buy from them.
They will usually base their decision on how professional they look. (also reviews..but nobody has reviews for anything around here).

So having a bad website loses them money.

The hardest part when you KNOW what is good for your client is letting them convince themselves..not cramming it down because you know best. They should be talking most of the time on the call.

bmminc said:

I'll also be split testing everything. From how I write my e-mail, to my scripts for calling, my prices, and so on.

Click to expand...

I think you'll do well with this plan. You've thought it through properly and are playing to your strengths.

More importantly, you know where you are going to get your leads, you will have no problem finding as many as you need and those leads are the 'low hanging fruit', so should convert well.

It's great to see you intend to split test everything too. This will do more for improving your sales than anything else.

A couple of suggestions for you which may help:

I would focus on phoning the customers rather than emailing them. If you're taking the time to design the website for them, you may as well spend a few minutes extra to actually speak to them. The benefit of making phone calls, is you'll have a better chance of making a sale, arranging a meeting or scheduling a follow-up call. You'll also learn far more about how you can improve your sales techniques in the event they say 'no'.

For each website you design, have yourself a back up list of prospects for it too (companies in the same sector, clearly). That way, if your target customer doesn't buy it, you can just call a few more people and still have a good chance of making a sale.

Also, you mentioned up-selling - you should make a list now of everything you can think of. The best time to up-sell is often at the moment someone buys from you. They are in 'buying' mode, so that's the time to take advantage of it. You'll be amazed how easy it is if you do it at that point.

Good luck with your plan - you've clearly put a lot of thought into it.

Seems like a great journey, bookmarked. Also good luck with sales

This looks like a promising thread and it's something I've been doing for a while now.
My advice would be to stick to one niche at a time so that (like trepanated said earlier) you can repackage the site for a similar business if they aren't sold. Secondly, if the average income in your area is about 32k then how come you're charging such a lot price for a quality site? I would drop the free hosting, low cost rental and combine these packages into one (this is what I'm currently doing ):
Average time spent on building site X hourly wage (ex. 10 X 60€) on delivery and then a monthly fee for hosting + support.
This way my sites are still cheap but ill get my recurring income. If they don't want to pay the recurring fee then ill charge extra for the transfer/installation

Yeah you're going to win. I've been down this road before. The only thing that's going to stand in your way is you. You're going to get doors slammed in your face, people are going to curse you out and hang up the phone, maybe a few friends and family members are going to call you crazy and tell you to get a real damn job, you're going to start wondering if this internet shit is really worth it or not, and if you survive all the bullshit that's thrown at you......you'll succeed. I'm 31 now and I started with almost the same exact plan that you have now when I was 29. It works. Just never stop taking action.

Good luck It's crazy how money is different in countries.. In my country $5k monthly is around average.. but we pay 50% in taxes too, lol.

blommas said:

Good luck It's crazy how money is different in countries.. In my country $5k monthly is around average.. but we pay 50% in taxes too, lol.

Click to expand...

Then you're still better off than me lol, average income of around 2k and 50% taxes

It would be better if the purpose of the cold call is just to land an in-person appt than trying to make a sale. Your closing rate will be much higher. Definitely worth split testing.


If you have a friend/relative who has a small business, you could build them a free website(or if they have a crappy website, make it nicer/responsive.). Then you could use them as a reference/talking point while pitching to potential clients. The client would relate more if you talk about a fellow small business owner and how having a mobile responsive site has helped generate more leads. Much better than talking in abstract terms.


Also this journey thread by Wasted from a while back is worth a look:

blackhatworlddotcom/blackhat-seo/offline-marketing/467598-killed-7500-3-days-exact-method-z-so-simple-duplicate.html

Very long article. Good job and keep in coming. Average income ?

Thanks for the motivation
Going to split test some of the ideas here.

First step to success:


No response yet from the emails I sent out yesterday.

Making a bunch more today. First candidate has a website that looks like this:


If I was a law firm i'd be embarrassed of this site. Lets hope I can help them!

Hey there! Good luck on your journey. Question for you.

When they do buy your version of the site, how do you handle installation?

Do you have a fulltime job as well and this is extra income?

Stylo, since they already have a domain and hosting, I offer to upload the files right to their server for free. If they would like me to host it, I can do that as well.
And itskelsy, my full time job is being a entrepreneur. I look for any way I can to make money and jump in.

Currently I have an ebay store, and make money off a couple affiliate programs. It isn't enough to pay the bills though. Luckily my wife is the most awesome person in the world and she keeps our heads above water for now.

I did however just today land a position as a community manager supervisor (I supervise the community managers) of a local video game center. They have pretty big reach with multiple stores and I oversee them both.

It sounds like a high paying job, but I will be getting paid based off the performance of the people I oversee. It is a pretty easy position and I only spend maybe a few hours 1 or 2 nights a week doing it. Plus its fun. I'll probably only make like $1k a month doing this job.

Due to the above stated job meeting and coversating with my new minions (muahaha) I only got one site done today. The "before" version of the site I posted above in my previous post.

This is the "after"


As you can see it is a huge improvement, and I would HOPE a law firm could spend $500 to get more business. E-mail sent.

So far still no replys.

I plan to start calling the people I've emailed next week. I currently only have a mobile phone, and the towers in my area are undergoing maintenance this week..meaning a lot of dropped calls.

Will keep updating!

Check:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...ips-techniques-help-yourself.html#post7638062

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Also, take a screenshot of the ugly website of your prospect and print it on a A4 sheet, for example.
Then find from Google and take a screenshot of the top and pro-looking website (take a single sample or take more) in the same niche/sub-niche. You may use a great Powerpoint presentation in its place also if you feel like!


Before meeting the local prospect, prepare a sales talk that even you won't resist from buying your premium service! lol. Btw, don't promise him/her the Sun, Moon, and Stars. That will put you in a mess later on...

Just make the sales pitch short and sweet, and pause at the right moments. Don't forget to close the sale at the first opportunity. Get a contract written down if possible. And... Always take an advance payment! And don't forget to look confident, presentable, and have a smile on your face! And yes, forget the Rolex watch... it will disturb your prospect's attention. OK, I am kidding on that last point.

Remember: A picture is worth a thousand words!
Show him/her how bad his/her site looks, especially in comparison with a few competitors' professionally created sites!

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The same can be done through email marketing also... Try both.