Deaf and Daft, getting my first sale

[samsara]

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.

You nailed it with that.

You gave him what he needed so he did the same to you.

Congrats for your first sale

 

[CareCPA]

This sucks,



I finally took a good look into my finances because I'm back down to 0 dollars in the bank for my business. I still have that check in the mail from that one sale I made MYSELF but I had to figure out where was I bleeding out. The truth is that I haven't gotten enough sales from my agency so I made the decision to let them go because I need to pay for my accountant which is undeniably more important.
[...]

Is it undeniably more important? Do you really need an accountant if you aren't bringing in revenue?
Speaking as an accountant, there is very little I can do for you if you aren't bringing in any revenue (I'm obviously not your accountant, so I am using "you" in the generic sense here).

 

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[c_morris]

Although we call it the FASTlane, it takes a hell lot of patience to get THERE.

......and time. Fast is a relative term here. It's 3 - 10 years vs. 40+.

@jpanarra

 

[jpanarra]

I hope your kid is ok now, and don't beat up on yourself about the procrastination. You aren't a procrastinator. You're a guy that temporarily procrastinated because he had more important shit going on.

Good to hear from you!

Thanks, I've noticed that I have a tendecy to label myself a procrastinator at the highest degree. I relate to this comic strip... Which is not a good thing in the first place.

However, I am figuring out what works and moving away from that procrastination label. This is me trying to identify that its actually a cycle of ups and downs, I just had a Down moment now I'm working my way up again and will be even better than my last UP Cycle.

This is going to sound harsh - it's not meant to. I just recognise similar behaviour in myself. The problem a lot of us have is that we're fearful of change and what could happen if we jump in feet first... so our minds find something to fill the space in time when we could be doing something. In a lot of cases that's exactly what you're talking about. We beat ourselves up so we don't feel strong enough to do anything. Basically, we're the parents who hold their kids back and the friends who find the negatives in everything we want to do because they're intimidated by it and embarrassed they're not doing the same.

You, @jpanarra, are more than enough and I love you for that confession about accountability. I've never been able to really benefit from it because I would lie about what I was doing / manipulate what I'd set as my goals so it looked like progress was happening when there was none.

Not harsh at all, No bullshit talk is the best type of talk. The funny thing is that its not the fear of jumping in and the change. Because I've already jumped in and had a certian degree of success, what is really stopping me i think is the amount of work that has to go into things and my mind just kinda goes "bleh" as opposed to "F*ck yeah" at the time.

 

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[jpanarra]

Hey,


Been some time since I’ve posted on here… Still moving slowly but moving along. I got 3 websites to build at the moment. The interesting thing is that one of those sites, I made the sale via text messaging.


I decided to try a new approach instead of cold calling people, I’ll try and text that number first and see if I get a response or it’s shutdown because it’s a landline. One of them happened to answer and we went back and forth talking about the pros and cons of a website and why he should consider one. That one closed a few days ago.

What has to happen now regarding this is that I’m using my personal number right now and don’t want to get that number everywhere I’m looking into Whatsapp the free textmessaging software that allows me to text via pc and smartphone and see if I can send texts through that. Then I’ll need to come up with a nice short way that’s still polite to reach out and try to get responses.

I believe this might be an appealing approach because people usually get defensive or avoid contact when it comes to emails and phone calls. Where texting is much more conditioned to be a comfortable form of communication. I’lll keep you guys posted on this.

 

[MidwestLandlord]

The more "near closes" you have, the more actual closes you'll have too, as you get better and better at pitching it.

Almost every time I'm close to throwing up my hands and saying "F*ck this" is when I'm really close to a breakthrough and just need to push harder.

Keep going!

 

[jpanarra]

Hey guys, JP here… time for an update!

I know that some of you saw my post on the inside, I plan to work on a business that will compliment and solve a massive pain point in all businesses and have a unique twist to it to get a good foundation as a young business.


So check it out on the inside, right now I'm just validating by sending out surveys and getting data to see where I can really put my energy to build my unique sales preposition. This is a business where I hope to get an investor involved because the start up costs might be higher than what I'm comfortable with so, I'll keep you guys in the loop but with more details here on the inside…


I hope to post a survey on here because I think it might be something that might help people on here. So once I get the ok from the mods I'll let you know when its up!

Web development/design is going okay, I have 2 more clients lined up for the next few months, I admit I need to fill up my pipeline with better leads and I need to work on improving my vetting process of which prospects are worth my time to cold email and cold call. I've noticed that the more time I spend on this stage of things I save my time by cold calling what I believe is the ideal client.


I also posted another video so check it out! I'm also open to suggestions and advice for more videos and such.

 

[jpanarra]

Jesus here goes, JP here


I'm feeling like I'm falling apart at my seams.. I definitely bit off more than I can chew. The Fastlane Summit thread got me pumped. I intend to meet all of you guys next year. So this is how I'm going to do this.


I'm going to go over the personal goals then business goals to get myself back on track from now till the end of March.


I will be posting another video today. I hope to make a Video of my talking about my progress and what I got done during the week, I know I have this progress thread but I think it'll be more visible for people that I'll interact more in my local life so more social pressure based on what I'm putting out. So that’s


GOAL #1 : POST A VLOG PROGRESS PER WEEK


I'm not going to beat around the bush. Fiscally I'm in a rough spot right now. I was late on my last month's mortgage and am struggling to pay the bills. My other half lost her source of Income, so if it wasn't for the web business we would've been underwater so fast that I don’t even want to know what would've happened if I didn’t have the extra money.


There is only two people that is responsible for fixing it, and that's me and my wife. So, this gave us the opportunity to grow her side of things. We dropped the money to pay for her class so she can become a Real Estate agent. She spent the entire week taking the class and she intends to finish it by March. Now for me, I kept the kids attended and I spent the entire Sunday working on my budget. I realized that I really need to track my spending much closer and eliminate where the little expenses are being wasted.


GOAL #2 : 30 DAY CHALLENGE DOCUMENT SPENDING EVERYDAY (This roots from the concept, if I cannot keep my spending in order for my household? What will it do to my business?)


Now from all of the stress and nerves I'm a little frustrated at myself. There was a good amount of downtime where I could've worked on my two ventures, but now from all of the stress and nerves I ended up being sucked in on the Xbox a bit too much over the past few days and just kept giving myself dopamine hits. So I got real with myself last night, I downloaded all of the games on an external drive and just gave it to my wife. I told her when she thinks I'm ready to play a game and unwind she can give it back.


GOAL # 3 : NO MORE VIDEO GAMES UNTIL IM CASHFLOW POSITIVE


Now onto the business side of things


Web business is going ok not as well as I want, I have a good number of things in the pipeline I have maybe 4-5 people ready but they haven't dropped the dollar. I have one website that will wrap up soon and will get the final 50%. I have one person that needs me to do his website and he's going to be paying me either today or tomorrow. This will really help my fiscal situation at the moment.


My goal is to work on the closing side of things. I have a system(my 2nd venture) that gets warm leads lined up so I'll be using that to drive my closing rate.


GOAL #4 : Close 5 Websites at 2.5k +


Telemarketing looks promising, we have 3-5 people interested to sign up for the first group so we can validate the process. We already cut a good amount of our profits to make sure we put the majority of the risk on the business so we can tweak and improve the process and help others get themselves out there. We are in process of recruiting salespeople and are offering commission based salary. Since it’s a monthly subscription business, we are offering a creative solution for our sales people, if they bring someone on board and they will get a commission every month that person pays us for our services. This got a good amount of attention



GOAL #5: Get 5 Clients subscribed to the monthly service


Now, I will come up with a system to track all of those goals, aka come up with micro goals to help me quantitative them and achieve what I'm gunning for. I'll keep you all up to date.

 

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[jpanarra]

I have reached the point of boredom again at my job. I've learned the majority of everything that's pretty interesting to me. I'm feeling like I'm spinning the wheel while I'm at my job and that is limiting my productivity for my other ventures. I know my job is limiting my ability to grow in this pathway I want. I'll be honest with you and myself. I'm terrified of walking away from this job but I'll explain it to myself why, but I'm sharing it on here. First of all I'm 28 years old, I have another 50 years of life ahead of me. That’s a long F*cking way to go.

A gear in me has shifted, I'm staring to read some of the stories differently on here. I'm also coming back to older threads and reading them in a different light as well. Like @Andy Black said a few times throughout the different threads on here. It's about the process, the journey, not the destination.

With the goal building I'm doing right now, the check lists, the 'programming' of my routines to make sure I get things done on a regular basis. I am starting to think about what is going to happen when I'm 35. I have been always thinking I'm gonna be rich and wealthy in 5 years no matter what age I am. This is going about it wrong, I had that kind of thinking for the past 8 years. I need to have a end goal, a road to travel on and my dedication to get as far as I can on that road while retaining my sanity.

As for my job, I don’t know how much longer I will last there. People are talking about the 'career' path and I'm sitting there thinking about what I want to do to market myself and do something differently instead of doing it because I'm stuck at this 9-5.

Am I really stuck? I know it’s a choice I'm making everyday when I wake up and drive there.

I have responsibilities of other people on me, children to feed, a roof to put over their head, shelter them to feel as safe as possible. That’s what my job gives me security to do. I'm not living an elaborate lifestyle, my 2 commuter cars are both over 5 years old. I make enough to pay for the mortgage and necessities and the rest currently goes to high interest debt.

So, I will continue to work on other sources of income. The telemarketing company and web design, they're a revenue stream to help me reach my goals. They can help me generate cash to pay off my debts. That has to happen before I even think about walking away from my job.

So thinking 5 years from now, I'll be debt free. Not rich, but debt free. Which will lead me to my next 5, which is walking away from my job and hopefully onto the Fastlane.

A bit more than year ago when I discovered the wisdom of @MJ DeMarco and this forum. I'm sure you've heard it again and again, MJ. Thank you for your experience and taking the time to share it with the rest of us. The way you delivered it, right of the bat the excitement and intensity was raw and I pictured myself driving a brand new car in a year or 2 to be honest. This is not realistic, the truth is mentioned in the book over and over again, it takes hard work and sacrifice. The more you sacrifice the shorter it'll take. The challenge for me is the sacrifice will be a heavy one on my kids, this means my Fastlane journey will take longer than what I will like it to be. Unlike some of the examples I've seen on here, some journeys like @biophase and @Kak takes years and decades and it feels like it happens in a span of months because I read it in a short amount of time on this forum.

Again, I have to remind myself. This is not a sprint, but a marathon. This is a recurring theme I've seen on here, but I think my gears have shifted to accept that what I'm working for today will not happen tomorrow but when I'm 35 years old.

Ok, now back to work.

 

[Andy Black]

I have reached the point of boredom again at my job. I've learned the majority of everything that's pretty interesting to me. I'm feeling like I'm spinning the wheel while I'm at my job and that is limiting my productivity for my other ventures. I know my job is limiting my ability to grow in this pathway I want. I'll be honest with you and myself. I'm terrified of walking away from this job but I'll explain it to myself why, but I'm sharing it on here. First of all I'm 28 years old, I have another 50 years of life ahead of me. That’s a long f*cking way to go.

A gear in me has shifted, I'm staring to read some of the stories differently on here. I'm also coming back to older threads and reading them in a different light as well. Like @Andy Black said a few times throughout the different threads on here. It's about the process, the journey, not the destination.

With the goal building I'm doing right now, the check lists, the 'programming' of my routines to make sure I get things done on a regular basis. I am starting to think about what is going to happen when I'm 35. I have been always thinking I'm gonna be rich and wealthy in 5 years no matter what age I am. This is going about it wrong, I had that kind of thinking for the past 8 years. I need to have a end goal, a road to travel on and my dedication to get as far as I can on that road while retaining my sanity.

As for my job, I don’t know how much longer I will last there. People are talking about the 'career' path and I'm sitting there thinking about what I want to do to market myself and do something differently instead of doing it because I'm stuck at this 9-5.

Am I really stuck? I know it’s a choice I'm making everyday when I wake up and drive there.

I have responsibilities of other people on me, children to feed, a roof to put over their head, shelter them to feel as safe as possible. That’s what my job gives me security to do. I'm not living an elaborate lifestyle, my 2 commuter cars are both over 5 years old. I make enough to pay for the mortgage and necessities and the rest currently goes to high interest debt.

So, I will continue to work on other sources of income. The telemarketing company and web design, they're a revenue stream to help me reach my goals. They can help me generate cash to pay off my debts. That has to happen before I even think about walking away from my job.

So thinking 5 years from now, I'll be debt free. Not rich, but debt free. Which will lead me to my next 5, which is walking away from my job and hopefully onto the Fastlane.

A bit more than year ago when I discovered the wisdom of @MJ DeMarco and this forum. I'm sure you've heard it again and again, MJ. Thank you for your experience and taking the time to share it with the rest of us. The way you delivered it, right of the bat the excitement and intensity was raw and I pictured myself driving a brand new car in a year or 2 to be honest. This is not realistic, the truth is mentioned in the book over and over again, it takes hard work and sacrifice. The more you sacrifice the shorter it'll take. The challenge for me is the sacrifice will be a heavy one on my kids, this means my Fastlane journey will take longer than what I will like it to be. Unlike some of the examples I've seen on here, some journeys like @biophase and @Kak takes years and decades and it feels like it happens in a span of months because I read it in a short amount of time on this forum.

Again, I have to remind myself. This is not a sprint, but a marathon. This is a recurring theme I've seen on here, but I think my gears have shifted to accept that what I'm working for today will not happen tomorrow but when I'm 35 years old.

Ok, now back to work.

I must admit, I don’t think 5 years out. Currently I just live day-by-day, week-by-week, and quarter-by-quarter.

I have a direction I’m heading in, but I don’t plan that far ahead. It could be an Achilles heel, but that’s how I like to move.



“Work Less. Earn More.” is a good book by James Schramko.

One of the (many!) things he talks about is setting 12 week goals and then working towards them. If anything comes up that’s not in that 12 week goal then just shunt it to the next 12 week to review. He calls this a “buffer”... like how the learner buffers on the sides of a bowling lane can help us to hit the pins at the end.


Anyway... all that to say - you can get a LOT done in 12 weeks, and it’s a short enough duration that you can get your head down and focus on a set of pins to knock down.

And I say this because I felt you’re a bit depressed from reading your post? Resigned that things will take a long time? And maybe telling yourself stories to justify staying where you are a lot longer than you maybe need to?



My revenue isn’t high at the moment, but *how* I earn it is important.

*** Automated MRR is golden. ***

I don’t mean “passive” necessarily - just that clients pay each month like clockwork.

If your automated MRR matched your essential expenses (if you hit 1x as @V8Bill would say), then you may be confident enough to quit your job.

As soon as you quit your job and focus on growing your MRR then there will be a big acceleration - you won’t have to commute, spend the hours in work, be depressed with office conversations, or be snatching time outside work hours to work on your business.



“The Automatic Customer” by John Warrillow is another good book. It’s small, and I’ll summarize my main takeaway rather than turn you into a consumer: my main takeaway was my realisation that “I’m building a subscription business”.

When I labeled it different I suddenly saw things different.


I’m not saying you need to build a subscription business - that’s just one way HOW to get the stability from a business to allow you to quit a job.


Work out what your 1x is.

Work out how to get that consistently each month.

Come up with a 12 week plan to kill some major rocks in your way (maybe even get to 1x by automated MRR?).

Get your head down for 12 weeks and see how much you can achieve.

Adding another $250 of automated MRR can be life-changing. It shows you what can be done, and that you “just” need to scale.

 

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[jpanarra]

Hey guys, JP Here


Figured it was time for an update, web sales is doing great!



As you can see from my Net Profit my web business is booming this month, one thing I’m observing in the past year and half I’ve noticed that things come in waves. It’s not a straight line climbing up to the top. I’ve had downs where I’ve seen no sales and it flatlines then there’s months like this one where I close 3-5 sales that I’ve been working on for almost a year. High price tag sales can take months to close, as long you’re patient and politely follow up with the people you’ve been in touch with.


Talking about web development, I see this approach to bootstrap my business ideas and try to learn the digital marketing side of things by helping others and teaching myself on how to drive traffic and such. I’m very confident in marketing a local business and getting local traffic to take attention a building its brand trust to the point where people just put down the dollar for my clients instead of a long sales process. Now my web sales are earning enough for me to start thinking and planning for the next step.




I already mentioned that I took the course for the CEF certification, the good news is I passed and am recognized by the national organization for electroplating that I am considered an expert in the field. I can leverage this to sell ‘electroplating’ services. I’m trying to think about this logically because what is the lowest barrier to entry for me but significantly higher than others.. My web sales can fund a small precious metals plating process in my garage. A lot of people tend to avoid the plating of precious metals because of the high risk of contamination and loss of chemicals in terms of waste. I’m experienced enough not to worry about this. The thing is I’m thinking about is plating Gold onto things, and I might start offering a ‘custom’ gold plating service here in Indianapolis. Gold is inert, and a lot of the pretreatment chemicals are nonhazardous and the waste isn’t a major concern for the ones that are because I know how to extract/neutralize them.

Instead of buying all of the equipment and chemicals what I intend to do is to build the website and try to work with a few local keywords on Google SEM, and see what bites the most and invest in the equipment then. The reason for this is because the biggest thing I’m concerned about is the demand for metal plating onto things. I don’t know what the consumer demand looks like for things like this or where the consumer demand stands? What I’ve found online is related to plating of car emblems and other things where people want to ‘display’ their wealth. Most of the plating in the untied states are related to large scale manufacturing processes for automotive or military, so I’ll be competing with the ones in china importing things in that are already sold as is. Hopefully people will want a ‘custom’ plating process.

I’m thinking about starting a new thread on this and only on the electroplating idea, what do you guys think?

 

[jpanarra]

Hey guys, JP here



It’s been some time since I’ve posted on the forum.

I wanted to share with you the ‘trial by fire’ thing paid off. I’m deemed a expert within my industry and am relevantly well known in my area.

I got an offer to be a salesman for industrial chemicals tied to the metals manufacturing industry in the Midwest.


I started on this job in the past summer. The one thing I’ve noticed the mindset and focus that’s required for me is parallel as an entrepreneur. So I’ll think I’ll have some valuable opportunities as I document my way through this sales job.

 

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[Jon L]

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!

yeah that reminds me of this feeling I used to have, especially when I was working for someone else. The feeling was of being in waaay over my head, and not knowing what to do next. I think I *was* in over my head. Some of that was perfectionism creeping in, but a good portion of it was that I hadn't learned the basics yet. With my business, I'm focusing on what I know I do well, and capitalizing on that.

 

[jpanarra]

What am I?


Who am I?


Is this life real? Or is it a dream?


Do I choose my challenges or are they forced upon me?


Why do I resist work when it’s the one thing I want more of?


I pass opportunities by, only to dread myself afterwards…


The week I read the Fastlane millionaire and found this forum, I was driven to make something happen. I was motivated and was in the honeymoon phase of coming up with an idea and generating money. Simply because it seems “easy” when it comes to fruition in my imagination. Now when I was faced with true hard work, I shut myself down. I stopped researching and writing up ideas only to lurk the forums for a half an hour a day. Living in a dream world that does not exist yet. Committing to things that I did not finish nor even started. Upset at myself and the lack of self-discipline to make things happen.


What I am, is a human being


Who I am, is a dreamer of a better future


It does not matter if it’s real or a dream, what matters is this is what I am experiencing and try to enjoy the moments that come along with it.


After some time analyzing the concept of “work”, I usually slack or get lazy when I don’t see the whole vision or have difficulty understanding how to move forward.


Opportunities are a dime a dozen, I only have to get one… The challenge is, pushing myself forward into the discomfort zone and get stuff done…


At this moment in time, I have no direction, no guidance, no understanding of my future. It’s easier to dream…


Dreams can be my enemy; they distract me from my focus…


Dreams can be my allies; they drive me to my goals…


The direction is up to me, how will I utilize my dreams?

 

[jpanarra]

Read this book before going to sleep last night,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PCKIJ4C/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

A fantastic resource for someone who is new and trying to establish themselves a new income using e-books. Now, I realize that I'm going to need to create maybe a few "funnel" books leading me to build an e-mail list and the book I'm currently working on will be too long and full of a lot of valuable information regarding my challenges. Therefore I'll continue to brainstorm and nitpick on small subjects that I can expand on to create the funnel books that will be around 30-50 pages that can be put up on Amazon for free.

 

[jpanarra]

Ok ,

The book is coming along, but I've been doing some reading. I will build a brand first prior to releasing the book and by doing that I plan on taking advantage of my connections within the deaf community. Spread some brand awareness there using youtube and when the views and such get big enough, i can justify releasing something with my brand name on it.

Also, i got my finance to start steering away from the slow lane. I convinced her to move to a lower cost neighborhood for possibly a larger house that might need a bit more love and care. I currently live in an expensive neighborhood that requires an HOA and is one of the faster-growing communities in Indianapolis so we can have more liquidity to spend on my Fastlane projects.

JP

 

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[jpanarra]

Ok time to update on my progress, I haven't really moved much on my book.

However, I started a simple youtube series that I haven't released to the public yet. It might be a bit cliche but it is about personal finance is done in ASL. I will be having closed captioning on it which is really the time-consuming aspect for this process. I'm also thinking about getting a voice over but not sure how I'll do that. Thinking about bringing in my brother to just do the voice over for me so i can reach out to the hearing audience as well.

 

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[DillanE]

"teachers saying I’ll be struggling to graduate because of my disability (which I’ll rather call enability)."


Thank you for this.

 

[jpanarra]

I felt like it had been a while since we saw you around..

Glad it's been a productive time. It's always good when people show back up with good news.

Good luck with the move and the MBA!

Haha, I never left.. Just lurked around on my phone for a bit before bed and on the pooper. Never really saw something that felt like I had to give some insight on. That aside, i'll be talking a bit more and catching up on alot of things.

 

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[jpanarra]

I’m going through a rough dry spell lately mostly due to the lack of attention to the business because of the capstone paper. I’ve haven’t had a new client in the month of April. I only got one new client in March from a personal network (dropped value big time too).

I’ve not closed a proper sale over a number of weeks. I went back to cold calling to try and nab at least one. I’ve been calling and emailing people on a regular basis now, no big bites yet.


I can’t spend my whole day just calling and emailing people because the quality of my message will become diluted and will lead to more work with no success. I will be persistent and continue to call and email people upward to 3-5 per day. I’ve started to write different variations on the email and see what gets them to reply to me. So far according to the Hub Spot account, I’ve sent out 72 cold emails in the past 2 months with 34% open rate, and no responses..

I know I’m doing something wrong, here’s my breakdown on what might be wrong

• Targeting wrong clients
  • Not interested in new website
  • Doesn’t want a new website yet
• Emails
  • Too long
  • Too short
  • Not descriptive enough
  • Not genuine enough
• Cold Calls(interpreter)
  • Nothing I can do here for the interpreter…

I will not hang up the towel. I am working on expanding my services. Currently, I am taking a class on Udemy for Google AdWords and reading through andy black's threads on AdWords to make my skill set even sharper and make myself more valuable.

The whole MBA Capstone paper took away the momentum I had in the end of February, I intend to get it all back and better than before.

 

[jon.a]

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

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 game...

Now picking up the phone and calling another cold lead!

 

[jpanarra]

Hey,


I guess it’s time for an update… My move is just about to be wrapped up, still unpacking and all.


As for my business, I closed a decent sale last week but still sub 1k. I realized that I’m facing with a problem and that problem is my time invested in this business. I’ve been occupied with my slow lane job, my new house and move which is slightly slow lane as well.. I figured that I need to come up with a solution without truly committing to a FTE. I know that I am tied down and the pressure of me doing a FTE is not ideal now, I’ll be honest, if I walked away from my job today. I might not be in the best position to do so.

So I’m faced with a dilemma, I can either commit to this business and leave my job maximizing my growth and sales. I see that the biggest issue I am facing now is getting sales consistently because balancing my work/business/life is not easy.

So, what I did was break down the different stages of my sales process. I realized there are sections that can be easily outsourced for a reasonable price so what I did was hire and trained a few people on UpWork. One being a lead generation/search for websites that can be upgraded based on credentials I give her. That’s been going on for maybe 1-2 months now and has worked too well and I can’t keep up with the leads coming in and emails going out.

That led me to the next stage of the sales process which gets passed onto another agency I found on UpWork to send a cold email through a sequence that I wrote on hub spot. I trained them to write certain sections to be more personalized and will be reviewing their emails going out to make sure that it is at par to my standards. I still want the emails to be personalized and “real” as opposed to a tacky mass email.

Me and that agency had a decent meeting today and he’ll be starting tomorrow and see how that works.

Everything seemed to be for me to start this new experiment for my business but now BAM! I’m faced with a crisis. Apparently Bluehost emailed me notifying that one of my sites got malware on it and decided to shut down all my domains under that account. Now I must pay top dollar for a proper malware/virus scanner to dig through all my domains to find out where that malware is hidden. I had security precautions on my WordPress sites but it still found a way in. Frustrating stuff, but this is an opportunity for me to learn how to maintain security better I guess.

 

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[OldFaithful]

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

I'm sorry to hear that, and I wish the best for you and yours.

Several years ago I had a similar situation during the '09 recession. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my career. It showed me that there was another way, it eventually led me to this forum and to starting my own business!!!

I'm confident that it will work out, and you will make it happen.

 

[LRG]

I have followed your thread Jason, and it was clearly a motivation for me. Please don't stop your journey!

First off, @jpanarra, you are an inspiration to all of us.
I have mad respect for your attitude towards life.
I believe in you.

Fantastic reply Nico, I love it!

 

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[jpanarra]

Hey all,

Still moving forward.. Just started a new thread about gaining traffic. Its somewhat of a Hybrid between a Case Study/Progress Thread/Notes that I hope will help me and others on here.

Getting Website Traffic (Affiliates and Beyond)

I closed a sale for a website and they said they’re mailing the check today so that’s some money in the bank. Also, my Agency said they have a really hot lead that’s ready to close as well.. so That’s more good news.

I know that I still have tons to learn, looking forward to sharing it with you when I do learn them!


JP

 

[jpanarra]

This sucks,



I finally took a good look into my finances because I'm back down to 0 dollars in the bank for my business. I still have that check in the mail from that one sale I made MYSELF but I had to figure out where was I bleeding out. The truth is that I haven't gotten enough sales from my agency so I made the decision to let them go because I need to pay for my accountant which is undeniably more important.



Turns out over the past 2 months I've almost poured 1k into upwork to yield very little results so it was an expensive lesson for me to learn. I've made much better returns when it's my own time invested in the business. I'm reading through Cashvertising all the while taking notes which I might share on here too on how to improve my copy/sales letter to people and am going to try and start from the bottom up.



I do have my affiliate website but its still an infant in terms of traffic and conversions. Knowing better now, I might've had a better turnout if I spent my 1k on google adsense or something rather than upwork.



Not to burn Upwork, but I feel like you really need to have the wheel already turning and a number of Standard Operating procedure that produces results by following the steps. Then you can hand it over to some freelancer on the interent and you'll be able to follow if they actually followed the SOP or not based on the historical results of said SOP. Honestly, I jumped the gun and was not ready for this stage in my business. It was a good experience and I hope I got more out of it over the long run.



This really opened my eyes to a few things so I'm going to go through my bank statements and stuff and see if there's any dangling fat that needs to be trimmed out to improve my fiscal situation.

 

[G-Man]

How on earth did I miss the post on your FTE?

At any rate, it sound to me like you're making progress, and learning by making mistakes is kinda the name of the game.

Rep +++ for sticktoit-iveness

 

[Denim Chicken]

Hey JP here,


Been some time since I posted on here. I know its said over and over again. Working to sell is like running a marathon. I’ve heard over and over again the saying of “business is a marathon” I respectfully disagree, I think it’s harder.

For anyone who has run a marathon. The hardest part isn’t the marathon itself, the marathon is the end and you know it’s going to finish soon and you’ll be able to go home and recover and move on with your life. I would say its much more similar to training for the marathon itself, but the training never ends.

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been struggling with cold calls. Rejection is not easy especially when you have a 3rd party in the middle of the conversation when you’re trying to sell. I’ve tried several different routes from emailing, to texting but the best return of my time is cold calling companies that have poor websites or even NO websites at all. Back to the analogy of training for a marathon.. Preparing for a cold call reminds me of the moments before I go out for a run. I dread it and I have a small routine before I do it, but once I’m into it I have to push through till I’m done. Then I’ll have to do it again the next day and the next until I find someone suitable to sell for me.

What helped me improve in the past 2 months is the practice of prospecting and preparing before I reach out to people. I look for businesses all over ranging from Facebook to google maps to try and find businesses. Then I rank them from 1-5 from how likely do I think they’ll be interested, this depends on a number of factors from personal experience. Then I set a power hour either at 8am or 9am and I call for an hour straight.

The time block helps immensely. I usually do maybe 10-20 calls a day now because of it. In the past I would tell myself 2-3 then that’s it and back to working on the computer. The truth is, I’ve gotten at least 5x more prospective warm leads just by introducing myself and offering to email them more information.


Two books that I just read that are helping my sales move forward are

Fanatical Prospecting ( about keeping your pipeline full)

And

SPIN Selling (great mind set about sales and how to approach them - thanks to @Fox for this one! Still reading this atm)

Got around to updating my website for the business as well, Arra Development featuring my portfolio with companies and people I trust.

Also, My Wife is getting into her own FL idea and I'm helping her with the product development and marketing plan.

Love the new website.

I highly recommend Smart Calling by Art S. It's at the top of my list for all of my sales books I've read throughout my career

 

[Andy Black]

Hey JP here,


Been some time since I posted on here. I know its said over and over again. Working to sell is like running a marathon. I’ve heard over and over again the saying of “business is a marathon” I respectfully disagree, I think it’s harder.

For anyone who has run a marathon. The hardest part isn’t the marathon itself, the marathon is the end and you know it’s going to finish soon and you’ll be able to go home and recover and move on with your life. I would say its much more similar to training for the marathon itself, but the training never ends.

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been struggling with cold calls. Rejection is not easy especially when you have a 3rd party in the middle of the conversation when you’re trying to sell. I’ve tried several different routes from emailing, to texting but the best return of my time is cold calling companies that have poor websites or even NO websites at all. Back to the analogy of training for a marathon.. Preparing for a cold call reminds me of the moments before I go out for a run. I dread it and I have a small routine before I do it, but once I’m into it I have to push through till I’m done. Then I’ll have to do it again the next day and the next until I find someone suitable to sell for me.

What helped me improve in the past 2 months is the practice of prospecting and preparing before I reach out to people. I look for businesses all over ranging from Facebook to google maps to try and find businesses. Then I rank them from 1-5 from how likely do I think they’ll be interested, this depends on a number of factors from personal experience. Then I set a power hour either at 8am or 9am and I call for an hour straight.

The time block helps immensely. I usually do maybe 10-20 calls a day now because of it. In the past I would tell myself 2-3 then that’s it and back to working on the computer. The truth is, I’ve gotten at least 5x more prospective warm leads just by introducing myself and offering to email them more information.


Two books that I just read that are helping my sales move forward are

Fanatical Prospecting ( about keeping your pipeline full)

And

SPIN Selling (great mind set about sales and how to approach them - thanks to @Fox for this one! Still reading this atm)

Got around to updating my website for the business as well, Arra Development featuring my portfolio with companies and people I trust.

Also, My Wife is getting into her own FL idea and I'm helping her with the product development and marketing plan.

I never liked the marathon analogy. I was a sprinter... I like moving fast, and then recovering.

This phrase made perfect sense for me:

• "You can't break tackles at marathon pace"

 

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[jpanarra]

Hey JP here,

I had an awesome experience today, I went to a local 'coder's meetup at a incubator near where I live to try and network and meet people so I can learn more about my local community and maybe contribute in some way.

The reality is there is a challenge in trying to meet in public as a Deaf person, because in those meetups people talk in groups and ideas bounce off people so fast that I have hard time participating. Regardless, I was able to get experienced people to talk to me on my ideas, my ambitions, my motivations, etc.

I had a good conversation with this one dude that talked with me about a blue ocean strategy with my coding experience and chemistry background. If there is any idea or concept that i can develop and bring to the table to other chemists. I will still be working on my ventures that I have already, they are profitable and have room to grow. All the while I'm developing my sales skills and cold calling skills along with building a system/process that maximizes efficiency.

Now as for my goals, I've shared it via video format here. Its still not subtitled yet but i'll get around to it soon.

Now for the breaking down of my goals so I can keep track of it easier.

Goal 1 - already objective, no issues here

Goal 2 - Keeping an eye on fiances by using a spread sheet, I found YNAB so I started that but since its my first month i dont have a snapshot of my projected income. So I made a spreadsheet that will be able to track my spending on a daily basis, but I'll fill it out 2-3 times a week as scheduled.

Goal 3 - I'm ashamed, I already played an hour of games today. I found the hard drive, played an hour and gave it back to my wife. Told her to hide it better.

Goal 4 - This is a much more difficult goal because its somewhat subjective, I needed to break this down further. So what I'm doing is i made a clear routine checklist, I will be sending out 15 emails per day and cold calling 10 people per day during business days.

Goal 5 - Monthly service, Same thing as goal #4, I'm reaching out to facebook groups, personal network, linkedin groups and sending PM to people to try and to bring them value. Then if i come across someone that I believe will benefit off what I've built I'll reach out to them. I still don't know how to break this down into something objective