Deaf and Daft, getting my first sale

[jpanarra]

Hey all,


Once again JP here, I joined a couple of weeks ago and introduced myself. After reading through this forum for a week and it feels like a good group of people on there that genuinely want to help, so I’m going to set up this progress thread. Also, I’m going to share a bit more about myself. I was born profoundly Deaf to very young blue-collared parents 27 years ago. Doctors and the medical community told my parents that I would not be capable of reading past 2nd-grade level if they didn’t cut my skull open and shove a computer in my ear canal. Which my parents (thankfully) noped out of and 18 years later I graduated in the top 15 of a rather large and prestigious HS regardless of some teachers saying I’ll be struggling to graduate because of my disability (which I’ll rather call enability).

Ended up in Rochester Institute of Technology graduated with a BS in Chemistry, hopped around awhile with jobs in the manufacturing industry and teaching at a Deaf school realizing that I’m not satisfied. Still itching for something so I started an online MBA program which I will graduate in April with student loans, which I understand now is slow lane mentality but I only have a few classes left, might as well go for it.

Over the course of my early adulthood journey, I’ve accumulated three, way cool kids and a very tolerable wife. Right now with the mortgage and student loans, my total debt is approximately 200k. Which is my first Fastlane goal to drive down all of my debts down to zero and then continue to flip the net profit to be an eventual penta-billionaire. (beating Mark Cuban) I have gone through my entire life of people telling me things were impossible, and I’ve proven them wrong time and time again. I plan on continuing this trend, and this is only my first step to real success.

Now putting myself aside, digging through this forum I'm learning a lot about several different strategies to make money some faster than others. The biggest thing I’m getting so far from this forum is a simple fact, get some F*cking sales no matter what it is. My current plan is to start importing and selling on eBay I set up a spreadsheet with formulas which I will share with you guys for some feedback and maybe you can use it. I have gone over perhaps a few hundred different products over the past week and end up with some pretty good prospects. Currently, I am in negotiation with some Manufactures/suppliers from Alibaba, so I can import and sell some who will get my first small goal, netting my first damn dollar.

 

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[samuraijack]

Ever thought about fastlane opportunities in the deaf area? You are intamately experience in it while most people are not.

Publishing books on:
Deaf and being a father
Deaf and family
Deaf and graduating a good school
Your struggle and what helped you (this could help younger folks going through the same thing)

Educational courses that you taught in Deaf school

Deaf and Dating (Sounds like a good name to me lol)

Youtube opportunities to brand yourself

product ideas:
"Growing up deaf...I wish I had"
"Going through college deaf...I wish I had"
"Working at a company deaf..I wish I had"

Just throwing some ideas out here.

 

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[jpanarra]

I'm laughing at my previous post, I had no idea how close I was to striking gold. Talk about a crazy week, I closed 3 different clients. Two websites and another one is a programming project. I will be outsourcing the one website which is a smaller business to someone I know and trust to do the website because I will probably have my hands full with the other two. It is a strange feeling and I have to admit I feel an immense amount of pressure to perform and present the best product for all 3 clients because this is the door that I worked so hard to build over the past 5 months for myself and trying to prove myself on this forum. None of the clients have deposited their upfront payment yet, but once they do I’ll hit the ground running and provide the best service/product possible.

As mentioned in the other thread, the one programming project is going to be a big time money earner upward to 30-50k within the span of 7 months which is an incredible start to 2017. However, It will be a large amount of time spent on this. I believe it will be me working with the client making sure that I understand what needs to be done and fixed. Along with outsourcing the different segments that needs to be done or trying to do it myself. Incredible learning experience to come for the next 7 months. Much thanks to @Jon L helping out with the phone call!

As for the other website, I want to tackle is a large commercial business local to me and has a hefty cash flow business. I reached out via cold email along with pictures pointing out all the different weaknesses they had and on google, they had a competitor next to them with an already upgraded and beautiful website. Basically, I showed them where they were bleeding and I rubbed salt in their wound by writing on screenshots where it could be improved and then offered them a band aid. This one I was able to go back and forth for a good amount of times going into the details along with the help of @Fox and really got the client warmed up before I handed it over to @Fox for the phone call. Which sounds like it went really smooth according to the people that heard it (I still need to get it transcribed so I know what went on in that dark dark looking video…) I know I said it plenty, but it’s still not enough.. MANY THANKS @Fox !!

The one thing I told myself, I will NOT stop getting sales. I will still send out a number of emails on a weekly basis regardless of the number of projects I have. Also, try my best to not say NO to the client even if I have my hands full. I will figure stuff out, scheduling, outsourcing, etc. This is the time to grow and continue to grow, there is no “timeouts” in business especially if you want to hit the Fastlane ASAP!! Now I’m moving for sure, I AINT STOPPING!

 

[jpanarra]

It's refreshing to see that someone with a major disability enability was able to nut up, while others on this forum still wallow in their own self-imposed doubt.

A few quick notes:

It's more about adding value to a person than just "strategies to make money." I noticed one of the item on your excel sheet was "Shuffleboard Puck." How is your shuffleboard puck adding any value? How is it better than the competitions? What problem are you solving? What's your Unique Selling Perspective?

Does your eBay start, end at eBay? eBay is not the best place for mass generic market (hell, even Amazon is pretty saturated and low barrier to entry). If you have a solid USP, I'd recommend looking into private label and then Amazon or an ecommerce base (like Shopify).

To be honest with you, I have no real direction yet. I literally finished the millionaire fast lane sometime 2 weeks ago and got on this forum last week. I don't have any major plans yet but I am taking action and trying to make my little money soldiers to recruit more money soldiers when I do find a need I can have more capital to steam forward on a private label.

As for the shuffleboard pucks it was one of the examples that i looked into and wasn't planning on acting on because i don't see myself fulfilling a certain need with that product. It was just to show what the spreadsheet was capable of. I wasn't going to share my prospects on here just yet but that made me reposition myself with my possible products so thank you.

I admit that this journey will be more challenging for me than most because i am limited to emails and text communication rather than phone calls and face to face chats on skype which i see a lot of recommendations of doing so but that just means I need to type sexy.

 

[IceCreamKid]

The law of momentum:

Beginning sucks. It feels lonely, hopeless, painful, tiring, and filled with failure/lack of direction.

But after a while, it sucks less. You learn what NOT to do. You learn what to focus on.

Then after a while of that, you'll hit the explosion point where everything starts hitting. You'll be smiling.

Stick with it to the end. This forum is here to cheer you on and keep you pushing forward while the rest of the world is saying, "But what if you fail? Get a job blah blah blah". You can do it.

 

[Jon L]

Yeah...anything that is a 'good idea' and could be implemented by starting small and building from there should not get posted online (or talked about with people you don't trust). If its something that would take a ton of effort to launch, then talk away.

I, for example, talk openly about the fact that my company writes custom business software. (best of luck to anyone who wants to get into that space).

I don't mention anything about the several products I'm in the process of building, though.

 

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[Fox]

Been some time since I've posted in this thread.

I'm putting the book on hold because I don't feel right selling advice to someone if I haven't gotten any real momentum or an actual successful business to the point where I can step away from my current middle lane job. However, I've had some work done and will be shelving it for later and working at it time from time.

Regardless, I'm still a rookie in all of this, but I think I found a direction inspired by @Fox 's thread here and I've been moving forward into it for a good 3 weeks now. Still learning the ropes for the business and developing my skills regarding web development and cold call people.

I've finished the udemy course regarding CSS and HTML recommended on his thread. Also, am about to start another udemy course to learn java/jquery to give myself more leverage.


I've read a few books regarding cold calling and how to land a prospect. I've written a simple script for me to follow that only takes 3-5 minutes to get it across. All of that aside, let me tell you, cold calling people is not easy, I get a bit of the jitters before calling every time. I use this video to pump myself up 3 minutes before i go ahead and call.

^^and its Closed captioned too!


I only call from 8am to 10pm, limiting my time to land a client so i can focus on other skill building and improving myself. Being deaf is definitely a handicap when it comes to cold calling, there is a major delay, another person is using their voice (i can't tell what their tone or confidence sounds like and what the pacing is out of whack). I might try to switch this to my advantage, I just found out I can upload a script to the video phone and have them cold call for me, I just have to be present for the call for the conversation after. Anyhow, I'm started to get used to getting hung up in mid-pitch so, every no i get gets me closer to a yes.. so ill just keep on dialing.

If the cold calling route is not successful for me for more than 2 weeks, I might have to consider to outsource my calling and maybe land a salesman to get me some clients.

Damn man you have the heart of a lion. So many people are more than capable and do nothing yet you are doing it and you're deaf.

Lets connect on Skype and we can chat back and forth. I might have some ideas to get around the cold calls. Rep +++

 

[jpanarra]

X-POST with an INSIDERS thread i started

I sat there, feeling a strange buzz in my head.

To my Right, my boss to my left is my ASL interpreter across from me is the supervisor of HR.

I didn’t need to look at my interpreter to understand what she just said,

“You are under investigation, as of today you are suspended with pay.”

I thought to myself, is this it? That’s it?

My anal documentation, my integrity, hours of my life given to this company, over a documentation error, I know OSHA is hard a$$… I felt like I was exceptional, I should be given some slack.. I knew better, I know people that have been let go for less… The fact that I was suspended was the slack they gave me, but still this means that I probably will be out of the job when the week out.

My mouth dried up, staring at the calendar at the date the mishap happened. Trying to think how could I screw up this badly? It made no sense… The urge to come up with an elaborate story and LIE to save my a$$ was extremely high, still I didn’t bc the implications will be worse…

I asked the meeting for me to go back and collect all of my documentation and see if we can piece together what happened that day, gave them all my stuff. My boss was very reassuring, felt like he truly was on my side, we have a good working relationship.

I gave them all I could get, walked out to a beautiful blue sky all the while resisting the urge to vomit…


THIS F*ckING SUCKS…


On the drive home, I’m thinking to myself. is this the F*cking Script F*ck this thing.. I read both books fastlane millionaire and unscripted more than once still didn’t really understand the weight because I never had this moment… my moment… my FUUUUUUCKKK THIS EVENT!

It’s funny, I’ve had moments thinking about the FTE in the past, still pale and hoping I get it soon because I wanted to take the full plunge into what I’m trying to do. I still feel like a chicken with his head cut off and running around, but I know I’m not going to take this hit laying down, things will be moving high gear on my projects while im suspended.

 

[jpanarra]

Ok,



It's been at least 6 full months since I started on this forum.. I would be lying if I said I wasn't frustrated. For some reason I pictured myself further ahead at this point...



I have learned TONS of stuff since I started, I know how to code/program and build beautiful websites… Roughly understand how SEO and driving traffic works even if I'm still new at it. Trying to deal with consumers and close sales on the phone.(which is really tough still).



I have made maybe in total of 6-8k ever since I started..



Ever since the incident happened 2 weeks ago… the splinter in my mind has dug itself deeper… It has made me extremely uncomfortable and makes me sweat thinking about it. It actually reminds me of the dog laying on a nail analogy in Unscripted … The splinter is now in a place where I feel like I can't stretch or try to ease my discomfort… I want to go frantic and try everything to try to get it out... Which could be the root of my current struggles and problems.



I've done a good number of things and have grown over time but still feel distressed like I'm not moving fast enough or something. I know its not overnight or even a span of 6 months which is really nothing compared to some of the guys on here like @G_Alexander, @Fox, and @biophase who has spent years before they got to the point where they are today.



I've noticed that I'm a bit all over the place and would consider myself as a generalist… I have the skills to make a beautiful E-commerce store… I have built an affiliate website that has proven that. Right now there is no traffic regardless of me setting up an basic AdWords Campaign… updating the content… scheduling posts on social media.. I know this website went Live 2 weeks ago but I have not seen the traffic organically go over 5 sessions, and adwords only brought in 3 people total…



Maybe I targeted a niche that was either too strong OR too weak for me to turn it into something profitable… I have already put in at least 350 for the website and its advertising so far to get no returns is a bit uncomfortable ATM…



My hope was for this affiliate website was to either break even or profitable enough so I can move the net income on physical products and put them on Amazon FBA.



I've done a lot of reading on the three threads and am considering this route at the moment during my downtime if im not building a website for someone.

GOLD - [AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

GOLD - Ask me anything about eCommerce (2015+)

GOLD - Sharing my lifetime experience in export/import. Product sourcing specialist.


As of now I have a big fat notebook of what I've learned over my journey after the past 6 months. I hope to share this info with you guys soon.

I will persist

-JP

 

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[jpanarra]

Website design has picked up,

This is all due to higher volume calling and emailing.. I've been traditionally doing 2-3 emails and calls daily which hasn't given me much success, but in the past week I've upped the ante to about 10-15 daily. i already know i can keep the routine so I can push the volume a bit more. In this week alone, I already pulled in possibly 2 websites for this month and set one for next month.

Hopefully, the cash inflow will help me with my finances and might start tipping the scale to pay for my e-commerce products,

Jason P.

 

[jpanarra]

Ok,


I might be a bit all over the place and don’t really have a plan yet. So I went back to THE book and re-read some sections from it. From what I’m hearing is that I need to fulfill a need, either locally or internationally. After some brainstorming and writing down random ideas on my Microsoft note app, I think I might stick to the basics for my first move. There is tons of local businesses near my house and is in one of the fastest growing suburbs in Indianapolis therefore there will be more small businesses coming along. Starting simple, I can reach out to the older blue collar businesses and offer to build a website for them that will allow them to have an online presence. Now I don’t have a lot of web building experience outside of wordpress and themes at the moment. However, if I can lock down a sale I have a reason to learn and learn on the pedal to the metal. My goal for today is to find 20 businesses that might need a website and my services.


-JP

 

[jpanarra]

Ok,


Now I’ve put in maybe 3-4 hours in looking at local businesses, it seems like a lot of people already have websites, but I see a few that can be improved so I put those on my list which I only have maybe 4 or 5 possible prospects. I’m not sure if I can make room to go in person. (I still have a job from 8-5). So I might try to look into their hours and see what times I can show up and communicate with them. ( My challenge would try and talk to them since I can’t hear and an interpreter is not going to be there). My strategy would be to use Google’s mic on my android phone and transcribe what they’re saying, and I’ll write out/type what I have to say. (this is what will be uncomfortable for me and can be a make or break for my sale) .


Another thing is that I realized after looking around on eBay, there is a way for me to make money on the side. I have a 3d printer at home, and I’ll be able to print out some little trinkets and sell them for small amounts on the dollar. The plastic that I consume to printout, an object will only cost me cents where I can sell them for whole dollars.


Have a good one; I’m gonna keep on hustling. I still have 15 more to add on my list, and my goal is to finish that list by tonight. See which businesses are open on the weekend and maybe go to 3 or 4 of them tomorrow with my son.


JP

 

[jpanarra]

Heyy allll!

JP here!

I know it seems like I disappeared off the face of the earth from here for some time now. However, the reality is that I’ve been crazy busy. My capstone project is coming to a close and will be done with my MBA degree in a matter less than 1 or 2 weeks. Which means I’ll have more time to focus on my business ventures and serving my clients even better than before.


On top of my web development and marketing business and my MBA, me and my family are moving down the street to a ‘roomier’ home for a smaller sum more than my house now. The process of moving and all of the paperwork is time consuming and going through the negotiation process is interesting with an person (my realtor) experienced and their thoughts and what type of value should be mentioned and what things that should be excluded so you don’t sound like a ‘car salesman’.


Regardless of the busy months, my business has grown slightly every month since. In Febuary, we made around 400$ and in March we made closer to 900. This month we are scheduled to make around $1500. With two more clients poetineally lined up for 500 each. I’m working hard to keep this trend going. Now the move is coming to a close and my MBA is wrapping up. I hope to be here much more often.

 

[Fox]

My first six months looked terrible. I wasn't making any money, I didn't have a "cool" thread, I had no one telling me I was on the right track.

Those first few weeks and months are tough - keep going. If you are improving all the time and focusing on value eventually the market responses.

Also keep in mind it was a lot longer than six months - that is just when I started looking at how to make money online. I had a failed app, ebook, and other ideas.

 

[GuestUser155]

It's refreshing to see that someone with a major disability enability was able to nut up, while others on this forum still wallow in their own self-imposed doubt.

A few quick notes:

It's more about adding value to a person than just "strategies to make money." I noticed one of the item on your excel sheet was "Shuffleboard Puck." How is your shuffleboard puck adding any value? How is it better than the competitions? What problem are you solving? What's your Unique Selling Perspective?

Does your eBay start, end at eBay? eBay is not the best place for mass generic market (hell, even Amazon is pretty saturated and low barrier to entry). If you have a solid USP, I'd recommend looking into private label and then Amazon or an ecommerce base (like Shopify).

 

[jpanarra]

Been some time since I've posted in this thread.

I'm putting the book on hold because I don't feel right selling advice to someone if I haven't gotten any real momentum or an actual successful business to the point where I can step away from my current middle lane job. However, I've had some work done and will be shelving it for later and working at it time from time.

Regardless, I'm still a rookie in all of this, but I think I found a direction inspired by @Fox 's thread here and I've been moving forward into it for a good 3 weeks now. Still learning the ropes for the business and developing my skills regarding web development and cold call people.

I've finished the udemy course regarding CSS and HTML recommended on his thread. Also, am about to start another udemy course to learn java/jquery to give myself more leverage.


I've read a few books regarding cold calling and how to land a prospect. I've written a simple script for me to follow that only takes 3-5 minutes to get it across. All of that aside, let me tell you, cold calling people is not easy, I get a bit of the jitters before calling every time. I use this video to pump myself up 3 minutes before i go ahead and call.

^^and its Closed captioned too!


I only call from 8am to 10pm, limiting my time to land a client so i can focus on other skill building and improving myself. Being deaf is definitely a handicap when it comes to cold calling, there is a major delay, another person is using their voice (i can't tell what their tone or confidence sounds like and what the pacing is out of whack). I might try to switch this to my advantage, I just found out I can upload a script to the video phone and have them cold call for me, I just have to be present for the call for the conversation after. Anyhow, I'm started to get used to getting hung up in mid-pitch so, every no i get gets me closer to a yes.. so ill just keep on dialing.

If the cold calling route is not successful for me for more than 2 weeks, I might have to consider to outsource my calling and maybe land a salesman to get me some clients.

 

[jpanarra]

Ok maybe made 18k today,

Great experience today, I’m 90-95% sure I closed a massive sale today. This was a local guy that I found on one of the social media sites and noticed that he didn’t have a website. He wanted to meet with me to talk about the website project, in fact he wanted 3 websites. Now, I went through massive prep for 2 days reviewing questions and stuff, my wife and me got us a new whiteboard which I will be using for a YouTube channel that I plan on starting to share my business knowledge to the deaf community using ASL.

(heres some pictures of my notes and thought process)

Now, naturally I obliged and agreed to meet and talk about it, being deaf, meeting face to face is always a challenge but I usually handle myself well when its 1 on 1 and use a notepad and paper when there’s a lapse in commuincation. When I walked in there was 4 people in the room including the decision maker that I already talked to prior. (semi-freaking out at this point) Its very difficult for me to handle group conversations because I can’t catch if someone else starts talking and can really ruin the tempo of the conversation.

Regardless of this, I knew that I couldn’t focus on my strengths on asking the different types of questions and my preparation was almost for naught, and I had to limit myself to asking straightforward questions that they would have to answer simply.

Brought up critical points in making a website, and emphasized that we don’t just focus on website and its design. We focus on making websites that retains people and use modern knowledge of behavior that encourages action such as CTA(call to action) buttons. Went over a number of different things that can be done to improve and draw people such as SEO, Google Ad-Words, etc.

From what I could read, it felt really positive, and they asked for the quotes of the different websites, I told them that the one would be static and html, but the other two would require some back-end work and php coding so 5-6k for the one and then around 7k for the other 2. The feedback felt positive so if this goes through it’ll be almost 18-19k in one meeting.

Part of me wants to be ecstatic, and I was for maybe 20 minutes after the meeting but then reality set in, I’ve been here before. I’ve had big near-closes that has just not happened. So naturally I’m trying to control my emotions and think about how I could’ve handled this better.

I think next time, I need to bring an ASL interpreter with me to those meetings. However, I will not be able to pay them upfront so I’m thinking about asking a few interpreter friends of mine to consider some sort of percentage aka like 2-5% if it closes. This way if there is more meetings in the future I might have someone that might not be just an interpreter but someone who knows how to facilitate the meeting and drive things to be favorable for me and the business.

Now, if this goes through or not… I have tasted blood in the water… I’m going to make a kill sooner than later. Plan on a number of power hours of cold calling tomorrow to get my pipeline pumped up.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Not rich, but debt free.

That's a great start.

Focus on the income side, not the debt side.

If you make $100K/more next year, the debt can be paid off quicker, optimally, in one swift stroke.

When I swung to the debt free side, it wasn't because I "chipped away" -- it was chopped off with one swing of an axe.

 

[jpanarra]

This is a good start. Keep headed in this direction. Keep in mind that with your current way of thinking, you'll make tens, maybe hundreds of dollars per month. That's not much ... but if you keep making adjustments to how you look at all this, that will soon increase--all because you took the first steps.

Look at how some of the more successful people on here make money, and incorporate some of the things they do into what you're doing.

Thats what i've learned on this thread, so many people dream of huge start up ideas and have no idea how because they nothing to act on. The ones that stand out and has major success stories usually start with a small sale that snowballs into something so big that they build connections and understanding of how to make money. Which is what I intend to do!

 

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[jpanarra]

Life has a way of setting you up and smacking you down hard. This post is a milestone in this thread, I started this post talking about finding direction and trying to close my first sale.



Good news! I closed it 2 nights ago, the whole process was out of my comfort zone. The major advantage with this client was that, he was deaf as well. So I was able to call him via skype and communicate naturally. He is currently an owner of a moving company that is currently rated number 1 in U-haul's recommendation system with over 2000+ 5-star reviews in one of the northern-eastern US cities and he does not have a website. As we were discussing about his challenges and vision for the business that he wants to expand and how the website could help him meet his goals. Within the conversation was able to tell that he was tense about something. So I decided to break the ice and explain that I was new to the website development front and will be only charging 100$ for this service. While I explained to him, that I wanted to provide a opportunities for deaf businesses like his own to succeed and have a good online presence to prove to others that it is possible to be successful in business disabled or not. As I was explaining this whole perspective, I was able to see a wave of relief and his body language shift and the conversation loosened up a bit. Then at some point he went quiet, then something I didn't expect happened. He expressed gratitude then he said word by word, "F*ck $100, I'll pay you what you're worth. I'll give you what I budgeted for." I sat there in awe, the whole thing blew me away. Now, I still don’t know how much he budgeted for but I was content with $100 and giving another deaf man an opportunity to have true success.



Now after this success, I was elated. I started working on the project immediately, finding templates, deciding color schemes, looking for images and saving them etc.



Yesterday was hard at work and trying to give this guy the best service he could ever see. The next meeting was tonight and I wanted to blow him away with what I already developed for him. Now, Like I said earlier, I was on cloud nine for this project and life has a way of smacking you down. I got a call from my wife that I needed to get to the ER and one of my kids got hurt really bad. OFC I drop everything and gear up and head out. My family is the purpose of what I'm doing all of this and I want to give them all a better life, and I still intend to. After the whole ER ordeal, my kid was fine and the dust settled. My feeling of being on cloud 9 has meddled down. This whole 2 day ordeal reminded me that you cannot have 100% control over your life regardless of how much of a system or how hard you work.



Came across this video last night, put a lot of things in perspective for me. Figured I would share it with you guys too. Stay resilient, stay alert, keep moving forward and things will happen, good or bad… just keep moving. Make sure to stay present for all of the people you love.

e.

 

[jpanarra]

I’ve been busy trying to get a major sale. I’ve mentioned on the other thread here. I’ve been having some challenges reaching out to potential clients. Currently, I am making some pivots and trying to adjust my position to make sure that I can close some sales.

The primary challenge about my current business adjustment is that I need to rely on others to make my phone calls for me. I have sent out several emails, and I’ve noticed that my results are not as useful when it comes to the numbers game. I’ve noticed when I sent out over 50 cold emails in one week. I only got one response back and when I discussed this with a few people. I learned that it would be better to spend my time trying to target individual prospects that might be interested rather than emailing people with just a poorly designed website. I need to have a purpose before I reach out to them and try to offer them a solution. Also, another thing I look for is if they already “have” a web developer. I usually move on from them; the market is too big, and opportunities are too plentiful to waste my time reminding people to go back to their original web developer.

From my post last week regarding getting sales, I have been contacted via Facebook and the forum from some people reaching out to help me. I have a few people willing to do phone calls and a couple of people wanting to do business with me and make all of my sales from A-Z. This is a great deal because it can shift my focus on building websites rather than making sales. However, the challenge I face is that the A-Z salesman is new on this front, so I’m giving them my resources and what I already know, but I feel like my knowledge is somewhat limited. Regardless, this could work in my favor because I am forced to grow a team early on and move through that awkward phase of “should I hire or not.”

I admit that I didn’t send out as many emails as usual last week and didn’t make any phone calls on my videophone because I recognized that I need to focus my energy on helping the potential salesman getting sales and supporting them. I am finding/showing them how to target certain prospects. Working on how they can sound like me on the emails and all so it can be consistent, and the business can seem like they’re in unison.

I’m not sure if I'm impatient or my frustration is typical for a newbie entrepreneur. I’ve shared this with @Fox because I’m reaching out to so many people and businesses and only coming up short on so many ends. I only have one sale over the past 2 months, and that was with another deaf induvial with a lower price offer. Although I’m not planning on giving this up anytime soon, I plan to push forward. I just hope that my adjustment and pivot to bring in salesman is the best choice to put my energy and focus on. I’ll update you guys soon enough on how this is going.

 

[jpanarra]

Whoo hoo! I just turned in my final papers and projects for my MBA. As of now, I’m officially complete with the MBA. Am waiting to hear back from the professor to confirm my passing grade. There was also a survey type of exam at the exit to evaluate how much I learned over the past 2 years, apparently it was a lot. When I first took the entry exam, I scored a 33% on the exam. Last night, I took a similar exam without studying, (I’m not a big fan of studying.. I’ll rather know something instead of cramming it in my head in 2-3 days and hope I remember them) and scored a 76% which is in the top 15 percentile of the exam takers.

I’ll be honest, I recognize that I have enough knowledge to be a ‘text-book’ manager. However, I still feel like a small fish in a big pond here on the forum. There are skills that people here have worked on for years and learned by doing instead of taking a class about it. I still struggle with sales myself, even if I took a course on how to manage and lead a sales team. What the MBA is really all about is learning the business language and snippets enough to be able to communicate between different departments and keep the boat afloat and moving forward when possible. From my personal experience if you want to go for the MBA, start a successful business and grow it to have a team of at least 15+ people and then take the degree if you feel like you have to.

Now, I have more time to focus on my web business and be way more productive. This means I have more capacity to offer more to my clients and focus on my sales tactics! Always moving forward!

 

[jpanarra]

Hey Hey Hey

I’ve been crazy busy, moving into a new house over the past month really cut into my entrepreneur time. I’m not going to lie, I’m struggling to complete work for some clients. But work is getting done, just not at the rate I would like to be.. Now, I’ve recognized that trying to get sales/leads time is cut down as well so I’m not selling as much as I would like. Still working on the kinks of my sales process but I’ve gotten some leads and small time sales. Just not enough to justify me to consider quitting my job just yet.

However, the new house is exciting, I’ll have an official office where I can actually sit down and focus on my work and really build a routine that’ll allow me to be more efficient.

On my down times such as in bed or breaks on my 9-5 job, I’ve been reading/watching tutorials on Google AdWords. I know I haven’t maxed out on my abilities to build a website, but I don’t want to limit myself to only building websites and I would like to spread my abilities to market websites for others and my own as well.

I had a brief conversation with @MidwestLandlord some time ago, I’m still walking down this entrepreneur path with no legit direction, but I do have a solid goal in mind. What I’m picturing right now is some sort of Virtual Landlord in a sense. I would like to build/acquire websites that generate revenue whether its e-commerce, AdSense or otherwise , I would understand the language behind them due to web developing and google AdWords experience. Once I accumulate a number of websites, I could start hiring webmasters (virtual property managers) to oversee the websites and keep them updated. That’ll be my first attempt to plant my seed that’ll I’ll try to obtain to grow my future money tree. However, this seed still needs some water (cold hard cash) so I’ll still build websites and stuff till I’ll be able to invest/build.

 

[jpanarra]

Its been some time since I've posted on here. I wish I had a major success story to tell you but the reality is that nothing major got accomplished in the past month. However, I've learned a good amount about myself and how being consistent is really a major challenge.

I have been into this for 8 months now and counting, I have 2 clients at the moment but I have not broken the 1k barrier in a single sale just yet.



I'm currently reeling from the repercussions of a procrastination wave, what happened here is that one of my kids got really sick and even had to attend to hospice care for some time. At the time I dropped everything I was doing and focused on my children, and rightly so. The major issue is what happened after my kid recovered and went home and my routine and commitment got thrown under the bus. I wasn’t sending as much emails as I used to, I didn’t call people that didn’t respond. I kept telling myself I'll do it tomorrow.



Now about 2 weeks later, I'm sitting here about to wrap up a few projects with no sales to work on. Instead of being disappointed in myself and questioning why I didn’t do it. I'm starting to recognize that there is a natural cycle of productivity and procrastination. I was wondering maybe others experience the same as I would. What would happen is that I have a major boost in productivity and then it'll diminish and eventually become the opposite and once I'm in a rut

I over criticize myself and that inhibits me from moving on and getting back on the horse.



What needs to change to make myself even more better/more efficient is to build a system of sorts that can help me move through the lower dips of the wave and continue to press on. I'll be working on that this weekend.



Funny thing, you know you see all of those accountability that pop up on here, I never bothered to join one because the most important person that keeps me accountable and moving forward is myself. If I'm not honest with where I'm at, I'll never improve so this is me accepting my mishap and trying to improve myself to be a better entrepreneur.

 

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[jpanarra]

Ever thought about fastlane opportunities in the deaf area? You are intamately experience in it while most people are not.

Publishing books on:
Deaf and being a father
Deaf and family
Deaf and graduating a good school
Your struggle and what helped you (this could help younger folks going through the same thing)

Educational courses that you taught in Deaf school

Deaf and Dating (Sounds like a good name to me lol)

Youtube opportunities to brand yourself

product ideas:
"Growing up deaf...I wish I had"
"Going through college deaf...I wish I had"
"Working at a company deaf..I wish I had"

Just throwing some ideas out here.

Thanks i really like some of your ideas, I have attempted to sell a tshirt ecommerce store on shopify with deaf culture references that bombed and left me with almost 2k in inventory. I learned the hard way, things dont always workout the way you expect them to. I sold all of the shirts on a major discount to break even and shut the store down so i can get onto the next venture.

The books and stuff are definitely on my to-do list, but I'm holding onto that card until I build up my personal brand. Also if I established a youtube channel, it would be limited to a deaf audience because speaking clearly isn't my strength and i want to reach to as many people as i can.

 

[Jon L]

Ok,


Now I’ve put in maybe 3-4 hours in looking at local businesses, it seems like a lot of people already have websites, but I see a few that can be improved so I put those on my list which I only have maybe 4 or 5 possible prospects. I’m not sure if I can make room to go in person. (I still have a job from 8-5). So I might try to look into their hours and see what times I can show up and communicate with them. ( My challenge would try and talk to them since I can’t hear and an interpreter is not going to be there). My strategy would be to use Google’s mic on my android phone and transcribe what they’re saying, and I’ll write out/type what I have to say. (this is what will be uncomfortable for me and can be a make or break for my sale) .


Another thing is that I realized after looking around on eBay, there is a way for me to make money on the side. I have a 3d printer at home, and I’ll be able to print out some little trinkets and sell them for small amounts on the dollar. The plastic that I consume to printout, an object will only cost me cents where I can sell them for whole dollars.


Have a good one; I’m gonna keep on hustling. I still have 15 more to add on my list, and my goal is to finish that list by tonight. See which businesses are open on the weekend and maybe go to 3 or 4 of them tomorrow with my son.


JP

This is a good start. Keep headed in this direction. Keep in mind that with your current way of thinking, you'll make tens, maybe hundreds of dollars per month. That's not much ... but if you keep making adjustments to how you look at all this, that will soon increase--all because you took the first steps.

Look at how some of the more successful people on here make money, and incorporate some of the things they do into what you're doing.

 

[jpanarra]

I had an interesting experience today. Started normally, as usual, sending out cold emails and started up on my phone calls and stuff.

Remember I make phone calls through a sign language relay call and I don't talk on the phone myself because I can't hear... So this one call it happened to be an elderly lady interpreting for me. I had a cold prospect that never responded but viewed my email and follow ups a number of times.

I hit a gatekeeper trying to inquire me about why I'm trying to get in touch with the decision maker. She was incredibly rude (which happens alot with gatekeepers I've noticed) It's usually easier if you explain what you're trying to do right out of the gate. "Hello, im so and so from this company and im trying to get in touch with "Bill" due to an email I sent about his 'website layout'. Sometimes it works and they'll hold and check with the decision maker, sometimes they just hang up.

This situation was different, The lady didn't believe it was a relay service and went off on the interpreter for lying and trying to use a handicap to get through the gate. She said a number of obscene things that could've bothered me, but it really bothered the interpreter and looked like she was on the verge of tears... When she finally hung up, I told her not worry and I'm used to gatekeepers being assholes...

I felt bad but I guess some people just aren't cut out for the cold calling game...

I think i need to come up with some strategy to get around the cold emailing and cold calling...

Now picking up the phone and calling another cold lead!

 

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[jpanarra]

I'm impressed, "normal people" just have to grow the balls to pick up the phone.

I'm the furthest thing from normal.. I'm Deaf!

I'm used to life throwing shit in my face just because I sound different and I give a significant amount of credit to my deafness for making me who i am and wouldn't be as far in life if i was without it.

 

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[jpanarra]

Hurts hitting that "like" button. Every day I feel like I'm going to get that call or email "you're on an improvement plan" and get slowly worked out of my job.

But this could be the moment where you truly say F*ck it and you make this business 100%.

Either way it goes, I hope it works out for you.

Thanks man,

To be honest, this forum is a beacon of hope for me right now.

What if i never read the FLF, never came here to find this community.. where would I be at this moment... Probably panicking and trying to wait it out or even applying to jobs with no thoughts of an alternate.

I've done the math... might be a bit of TMI but i need near $2000 biweekly to match up my salary... a bit of a steep goal to hit in 30 days if this is indeed my fate...

Still not going to stop me from trying

 

[Andy Black]

Relax brother. It's a journey and it doesn't happen overnight.


For some reason this post from @Nicoknowsbest from yesterday popped into my head:

• Progress Thread - [Progress] Graphic Designer Going Freelance & Fastlane

... where he links to this thread by @biophase:

• Why does everyone want to get there so fast?

This thread might help you too:

• You can go slower than you think

 

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