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SEPTEMBER 2024 UPDATE:
Hey folks, just wanted to give you a quick update that the program is still going strong, and the private community is more active than ever.
Right now, I’m running a NEW deal on this program for the Fastlane forum only. If you already know what the program is about, check out the link below to claim the deal.
Otherwise, keep reading this post so I can show you how to get profitable with web design right now, in 2024.
>>> Claim Your Fastlane Legends Deal <<<
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Is web design still a profitable business in 2024?
If you've been following me here or on Youtube, you probably know that I started a web design business back in 2016. If you missed it, I have a full gold thread on how it went here.
In short, things went very well, I posted about it online, and others wanted some help starting their own web design businesses. So I eventually started this program (Fox Legends) to help more people at once.
Since then, I have worked with hundreds of people, helping many to start their first consistently profitable online business.
Now, a lot has happened since I got started – the economy, politics, business trends, the global marketplace, and so on. Every week there is some new global event, and it is easy to get distracted.
And while on the surface it looks like a lot has changed, I don't believe it has.
I feel strongly that the web design business model and the principles behind it haven't really changed one bit.
And the people focused on the right approach to web design are doing better than ever (I have top students doing $10,000 to $25,000 deals consistently).
Especially now, actually, when AI is making it ten times easier to build a website (more on this in a bit).
So if this is getting you excited, good. It should!
I have a lot to tell you about getting started, so keep on reading for more details...
Can web design still work in 2024 and if so is it a good choice?
This thread somewhat assumes that you are open to the idea of starting a web design business. Maybe you have even thought about trying web design in the past, but were not 100% sure if it was the right thing for YOU to pursue with all the different options out there.
Either way, the most common questions (and what we will cover in this thread) are:
My goal is that by the time you finish reading this thread, you can definitively say either—“Yes, web design is a good option that fits with my long-term Fastlane plans”—or—“No, I can safely rule out web design for now.”
On top of this, you likely want a business to tick some important boxes:
These are the common personal requirements we see people asking about when it comes to web design. They are not exactly questions, but more "will it be possible to achieve this" type goals.
Let’s cover them first...
So what does it take to succeed in web design in 2024?
Over the past 4+ years, I've been fortunate enough to help a lot of people get started with a profitable web design business. Through my own YouTube channel, this forum and several other places, we have built a great private community that helps everyone win big.
I try not to promote web design too much on the forums, but through my web design program there has been at least 300-350 members on here that I have helped get started with their first successful online business.
I also have my own Fox Web School YouTube channel (over 37,000 subscribers), my freelancing Instagram page (173,000 followers), and my email list of nearly 20,000 people.
All of these different places mean that I have now directly helped and coached literally thousands of different web designers and freelancers.
And what I want to cover below are the clear trends I have noticed on why some people succeed, while others get stuck or fail over and over.
And these strategies that we will cover do make a BIG difference.
I have had students with zero experience sell their very first website for MORE than some web designers with 5+ years experience have ever made on a single project.
AND it's not just about making profits either - they also do an amazing job of helping their clients get REAL business results.
It is a total win-win for everyone involved.
Is it difficult to design websites?
I’ll tell you a secret – I’m actually not a very good designer at all. And I still got my business to 6 figures within 6 months of starting it.
Again, that’s not because I’m a better designer. But because I’m a better salesperson than most designers.
I focus on selling the end result of having a great website (e.g. helping the business owner who hires you to make more money) instead of focusing on selling the visual quality of the design (e.g. how great the site looks).
To create a website is VERY easy in 2024. And there are literally hundreds of AI tools to help you with that.
If you ask most designers, they will tell you that AI is a threat and that they are scared it will steal all their clients… but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
What AI promises is “great web design”. But how we teach you to position your business is “helping business owners make more money with web design”.
See the difference? See why a potential client would be happy to hire you instead of using an AI tool themselves?
If you want to take the fastlane road, you have to understand this:
Technical skills won’t take you there – sales skills will. Learning to outsource will. Thinking like an entrepreneur will.
So no, it’s not difficult to design websites. And you don’t even have to think about it too much.
All you need is to know the basic stuff, like how to edit a template (and there is no need for coding to do that – there are drag-and-drop design tools you can use), and how to arrange the information on a website for the best results.
All of which we will teach you inside the program, but more on this later.
For now, let’s take a look at the different approaches to a web design business and why some people succeed while others don't.
Let's start by looking at what NOT to do...
The 2 Common Approaches to Web Design That WON'T Make You Profitable
#1 Wrong Approach - Focusing 100% on learning coding and technical skills
95%+ of web designers fail to achieve freedom because they spend all their time developing technical skills. They think that if they are experts in Javascript or Wordpress, they will be in demand and profitable.
They quickly find out, though, that it just doesn’t work that way. Business owners don’t think in terms of code and design — they instead keep focused on their most important business challenges or problems.
Can you imagine a business meeting where the owner tells his team, “We badly need to put more money into HTML and CSS this month”? That is never going to happen!
What matters most to a business owner is what clearly keeps their business running and growing. These are going to be areas like increasing sales, attracting new customers, or making sure everything is running efficiently.
It is these key business areas where you need to clearly show how you can help.
This is now twice as important in 2024. If you can’t help with creating sales, customers, or better systems most businesses are not going to want to listen to you at the moment. They want big results - right now.
It is in the key most important business areas where you need to clearly show how you can help.
To succeed you have to present what you can offer in a way that matters to them. If it isn’t easy for them to see the value in what you are selling, they will put it at the bottom of the list with 1,000 other things that need to be done someday.
What gets their attention is “here is how you can get more customers” not “I could improve your old Javascript”.
The people who do best don’t focus on selling the technical stuff - instead they look for ways to create value and then make it appealing for a business owner to invest in.
Often they actually have very little or average technical skills.
While advanced coding skills may get you a job, they alone won't make you an entrepreneur. Focusing too much on your technical skills usually results in you becoming just another cog in someone else's business. With a "need to learn more code" mindset, it is easy to become overqualified without a clear way to make money or sell yourself.
Unfortunately, a lot of web designers don't see this and keep going in the wrong direction.
And when it doesn't work, they mistakenly double down on the very skills that are already hurting them the most... "I don't get it - I can code amazingly - why can't I find work?".
I get a lot of this kind of DMs all the time - it doesn't work.
Also there are so many easy ways to make a website in 2022 with very basic coding skills and anything extra on top of that can be easily outsourced. The truth is you don’t need to be that good technically to run a profitable web design business. The real skills that make you profitable are often not technical.
(A lot of old school web designers or people who paid big money for coding degrees will disagree. BUT these same people complain they can’t get hired and there are no good clients. Business and selling skills always come first.)
Wrong Approach #2 – You focus on building beautifully-designed, custom-coded websites.
A lot of web design gurus out there will teach people that this is where the money is — spending weeks building fancy, custom-coded websites. But this approach doesn’t work well either.
First, you will end up working around the clock to make the perfect design. When you focus on selling design, you attract clients who think about how things look, rather than how well they work. You’ll have clients focused on the design of every pixel, section, and button. Many times, it means a lot of extra hours added to the project and dozens of rounds of changes.
I am sure some people on here have horror stories of these sort of projects! Design focused projects can be a nightmare.
Secondly, though, very few businesses care about design in the first place. When they don’t know what they want, they might say, “design,” but what they are really after is a solution to a deeper problem.
Your clients don’t really need elaborate custom illustrations, 3D graphics, tons of animations, and award-winning design. They don’t care much about a totally unique, fully custom website that’s nothing like a visitor has ever seen before.
What they are looking for is a real change in their business. They are secretly hoping that the fancy new design helps them get more sales, or brings in new customers. Often when you get to the core issue it was never really about design - it was something bigger they were after.
The cool thing is when you identify what really matters you can get a lot better results with much less work. There are way more effective (and easier) ways to help create sales than spending 100 hours on photoshop making custom graphics.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that visual design is useless or bad. It’s just one of the tools we can use to build great results. Just like with technical skills - it is nice to have but don’t let it be what you rely on to build your web business.
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Where both of the above examples go wrong is the same - putting specific skills before an overall approach that works.
Business owners don’t go to sleep thinking of code or design. They are thinking about their actual business.
Web design gets (very) profitable when you start to think bigger than just code and design...
The main reason people succeed with web design is by shifting their mindset to what really matters.
Instead of focusing on code or design they start to look at things from the business owners perspective.
These web designers only focus 20% of their time on learning technical skills and design, but the other 80% on mastering how to use and market those skills.
Many are not the “best” coders or designers, but they understand how to make their skills extremely valuable in the marketplace.
They realize that running a web design business has very little to do with technical skills or your design ability.
>>> It is all about creative problem solving and adding value. <<<
With that in mind, let’s look at how you can get started with learning and developing these core business skills...
A realistic plan to succeed at web design in the short, medium, and long term
There are three main stages you will progress through in your web design journey. These stages also show why web design is such a great way to learn the key skills we talked about above and to prepare for your future Fastlane ventures.
***I’ve included student case studies from people on this forum to show you what to expect at each stage. If you are one of the people (or another student), then feel free to add in more details below if you wish.***
The first stage: Getting started
This is where most people are going to be when they first join the program. They will either have started learning the basics of code or will have some coding skills but struggle with sales.
The first goal here is to change how you view web design and to focus on what matters most to a business owner. When you can see why they would buy, you can start to align what you are selling with what they want. This makes it a lot easier to sell, but it also means that what they hire you for is much more valuable for them, too. It is 100% win-win.
The second goal is to help develop a winning mindset for business (and life). After 100s of interactions with students, I’ve noticed that mindset is one of the biggest issues holding most people back. So we put plenty of focus into helping you overcome any mindset issues. Such as self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism or poor self-management.
In around 1-3 months, our students will typically land their first $1,000+ project. Getting that first win under your belt feels great and creates a ton of momentum! While this isn’t life-changing money, it’s still a great first milestone, and it helps to confirm the fact that you’re building a solid foundation of skills. You’re learning how to sell, how to close deals, and how to manage a project. You’re changing the way you see business. You’re beginning to help others and be in demand.
(Plus it means you will have already paid off the full lifetime access to the program!)
A good example of this is Owen...
Owen joined in May of last year after seeing this thread on here.
He had little in the way of coding or web design experience...
By August, he was using the sales and business skills from the program to land website and SEO deals...
And then, by November was able to hit a big personal goal and quit his job. ..
For a student who shows up and takes action with the program, these are the sort of results we would expect them to hit.
Another great student example is @Isaac Oh
Isaac started a few months back and has gone from a $500 project to a $2,500 project to just recently enjoying his first month of over $10,000. Keep in mind that he only just started to learn code when he joined, too. This isn’t about just charging massive prices either - his clients are getting massive value and huge results from his websites.
***Update***: Isaac has now transitioned into running a full blown agency with the skills he has picked up in this program. He works with some amazing clients and is running a steady 6-figure a year business...
These posts above are taken from the private FB group, and you will see success posts like this every week.
And here is another recent one from Instagram, of someone who took my previous program that I promoted on the Fastlane forums...
Medium Term (1-2 years):
This is where you start to focus on building a steady income and a solid base of clients and referrals.
While big payday projects are great, to succeed long-term, you also want consistent cash flow.
So this stage is all about building the right relationships, helping businesses in a big way, and becoming a longterm trusted advisor.
The cool thing is that as you build more trust with each new client, you also get to learn a lot about how successful businesses grow and thrive. You get an inside look at how their businesses run - which means you can develop real, transferable skills. On some projects, you can get dozens of hours working alongside seasoned successful business owners.
This experience helps with a lot more than just web design. It can be very hard to get this kind of insight elsewhere, but with web design, business owners share openly with you as you work together. You get a lot of exposure to what makes a business successful, what creates sales, and what keeps customers coming back. It’s like a bonus mini MBA of sorts.
To give a few examples of people at this stage who started with just making websites and who are now quickly going Fastlane...
A great example of this is @GuitarManDan. You probably have already seen his own great gold progress thread on here, but I will quickly cover his progress....
Dan started his web design business in 2018 using my previous course and had a very decent year or two. However, he wanted to take things to the next level and didn’t want to get complacent. He then joined the full Fox Legends Program.
After joining, he absolutely crushed it, and along with some big website sales, did super well with building recurring revenue too. To give just one example, he landed a $25,000 sale from a cold email technique that I shared in the course (but Dan gets all the credit for taking tons of consistent action!).
Within the first year he was already well into building a steady six-figure web design and SEO business.
But he didn't stop there...
He has also created a truly Fastlane business on top of his web design business with massive potential. It is still in the early stages of scaling it up, but he is already at over $60/k a month, and this is the exact goal we love to help people towards with the program.
You can see his latest progress here...
(Screenshot from Dan's progress thread)
Long-term (2-3+ years)
I hinted at this with Dan's story, but our end goal with this approach to web design is much bigger than just making some websites. This last stage is really what separates this program from other options.
As much as we love web design (and we do!), we always see it more of a launching pad than an end destination. Our end goal is always for our students to use their web design experience to go on to launch an even bigger Fastlane-style business.
If you think about any successful Fastlane business, you will need a certain set of skills:
- How to find unfulfilled needs in the marketplace
- How to create a valuable product or service
-How to then sell that product or service
- How to scale your business
- And so on
Once you pick up these skills through web design, you will be ready to keep on moving to the next Fastlane level.
It is a natural next stage and one we have built into the way we run this program from the very beginning.
If have done our job right, during this stage you will feel ready to use what you have learned (and your cash flow from projects) to reach for that next level.
A good example of this is @MJ DeMarco himself. Now obviously, MJ isn’t a student or has taken any of my training, but if you look back at MJ’s story (before his big successes), he first started paying his bills and improving his skills through web design work...
“I aggressively marketed my website. I sent out emails. Cold-called. Mailed letters. I learned search engine optimization (SEO). Because I couldn’t afford books, I visited the Phoenix library daily and persisted to read about Internet programming languages. I improved my website, learned about graphics and copywriting. Anything that could help me, I consumed.
Then one day I had a breakthrough; I received a call from a company in Kansas who raved about my website service and wanted me to design their website. Sure. I obliged with a price of $400. They thought the price was a steal and within 24 hours, I built the company their website. I was ecstatic. In 24 hours, I had most of the rent payment. Then ironically, not 24 hours later, I received another call from a company in New York asking for the same thing… a new website. I designed theirs for $600 and it took me two days to complete. I had another rent payment! Now, I know this isn’t a lot of money, but from poverty to $1000 in three days felt like winning the fifty million dollar Powerball.
My first few months in Phoenix, I gained traction and survived on my own for the first time in my life. No flower boy. No bus boy. No pizza delivery. No sponging off mom. I was purely self-employed! I was momentous acceleration, a wind at my back that foreshadowed a directional change into a new universe of wealth generation.’
and...
“I took a contented pause thankful of my recent move and glanced at my bank balance. It was more than $5,000 and it was more money than I ever knew. Now I realize that $5K is not a lot of money, basically it is bankrupt. However at that moment in my life, it meant not having to get a job for at least another year.
You see, that $5,000 bought me one year of freedom. Freedom to pursue success. Freedom to do what was necessary. Freedom to pursue my dream. For the next year, I was guaranteed to own every hour of my life.”
Links:
https://www.mjdemarco.com/my-story/
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/one-year-of-flf.56628/#post-417628 (post #17)
This is a great example of starting web design in the best way possible - with a focus on using it to go much further when the time is right. And I fully agree with MJ here and think web design is NOT a great long-term option. The best web designers are always people who used web design to go on to do something much bigger! That is how you make it truly Fastlane.
But for someone on here right now without a solid business plan, who doesn’t have a ton of money in the bank to invest, and who might be struggling with core business abilities such as mindset or sales, then web design can be a perfect option to get you to where you want to be long term.
What are the key ingredients to make Web Design work for me?
The mistake I have seen over and over is people who have the best of intentions, but head completely down the wrong road. They focus on developing the wrong skills, working with the wrong type of clients, and having no idea how to increase their sales or results.
What can seem like progress at first can quickly turn into a dead end. They end up working for free or cheap for months on end, yet things are still not improving. They are no closer to big sales or any real success.
Web design is definitely not an area where hard work is necessarily going to pay off - you have to think strategically.
Where is a good place to start?
Get a good game plan. No matter how low your current skills or experience might seem, with a solid plan you can make massive progress in a short amount of time. Just one or two projects done the right way will add up very fast.
Along with that surround yourself with the people who are already getting good results and learn from them. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The people who run successful web design businesses use the same effective tactics over and over again. This is where a coach or mentor is going to be key. You might think I am biased (since I also coach) but I invested a lot in coaching and training when I first started. I still do.
On top of this it's crucial to have a solid support system to keep you motivated and focused. Working as a web designer can be quite challenging if you are fully alone. By being a part of a group of like minded people though, you can keep yourself accountable while making a ton of personal and business progress. A strong network is a must.
These core ingredients to web design success is why we have structured Fox Web School the way we have. We saw what what would work best and then built a program that provides you with everything you need to succeed.
What Fox Web School Can Offer
Nobody needs another generic course that gets you average results. There are plenty of these, and they churn out people who will never make more than a few $100 for a website.
What you need right now is the right coaching and blueprint (along with a proper community) for creating real success. You want a proven program to develop the right skills for you in the right order - and that keeps you motivated and moving in the right direction.
That is exactly what you get when you join Fox Web School.
We focus on helping you master important business skills that make a real difference.
These are skills like:
- finding big needs in the marketplace
- persuasion and communication
- taking huge amounts of action
- overall business strategy
- problem solving skills
- sales and marketing
- solid self-control
- and mindset
And all of this adds up to a dangerous skillset you can then use to build any type of Fastlane business.
In fact, since this program launched in 2019, we have already helped 350+ members directly from this forum plus over 1,300 students total. We have worked hard on making a great program and community that over-delivers and consistently gets results.
This program is known as the “Fox Legends Program". And it was built with a specific end-goal of first helping you to get profitable with web design - and then showing you how to use web design to go even bigger.
To keep this post a bit shorter we haven’t packed it full of reviews (we have 100s) but if you look around this thread or on the forum you will find many. Also, on Trustpilot we have well over one hundred 5-star reviews...
We are always working hard to improve things, but the program is already completely proven to help new students see great results and consistent progress.
Based off what has been proven to work best so far the program structure is:
a) Stage one - Get Dialled In
(This is an overview of the general stages - use the link below and I will send you a FULL program breakdown)
Also, you get access to our amazing community...
Monthly live calls
Every month, we have several group live calls hosted personally by myself.
There are open format on Zoom - and are a place where you can share your progress, ask questions, get direct feedback, and speed up your learning pace.
Since I have started the program I have hosted several hundred of these calls - which is something you won't see in hardly any other program. (Cause I actually care about getting you results!)
And since we get asked this a lot – we record all calls and have a system in place to get your questions answered if you can’t make a call. This also means all the past live calls are available once you join too!
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We also try to do some Guest live calls - with some notable past calls being MJ DeMarco himself, along with John Kavanagh (Conor McGregor's coach), and James Jani (1.6 Million Youtube subs).
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Membership to the private Fox Legends Program Facebook group
You’ll also get full access to our private Facebook group, where you can interact with your fellow students. You all know what a private Facebook group is, but this one is different.
For a change, this one is actually very active and high value with detailed posts and daily engagement.
You won’t need to wait longer than a few hours at most to get a response to your question.
In fact, it is common to see whole sale pitches and proposals get created and then successfully closed in the Facebook group each week! If you join, and have any issues with web design, your business, motivation, mindset etc. – we are always in the group ready to help.
I know from experience just how critical it is to surround yourself with other motivated people if you want to hit your goals. And while I might be a bit biased, I truly believe our community is one of the best places to do that.
(If I’m being honest, this is probably my favourite part of the program. Pretty much everyone who joins is blown away by how supportive all of the members inside the Legends community are.)
Extra Resources
Along with the full program I have also invested back into getting in the best guest coaches possible for some additional bonus courses.
There include:
- Learning Google Ads with @Andy Black
- Copywriting Skills with @Bekit
- Mini Agency Course with Isaac Oh
- Facebook Ads course with Tate Morgan
- Starting SEO course with Steve Deane
- Webflow Starter course from Eli Alcaraz
- As well as bonus coaching calls from a few of the top members on this forum
So it is pretty stacked with all the skills you need to get going!
>>> Get The Details on Your Fastlane Legends Program Deal <<<
What you need to be able to join…
We run things a little differently to most communities and it also means our deal is way better.
First off - we give you FULL lifetime access. So once you pay upfront (or complete your plan) you then have full lifetime access to everything. This also means you can access everything once you join - so no waiting around for things to unlock or for you to get access permission.
Which is pretty crazy. Most programs on this level limit you to only 6 or 8 weeks and that is it. I have been happy to continue to help out all the members who have joined over the last 3 years. Which has the added benefit for you of having a ton of experienced people in the group once you join.
Bottom line - I really do care you get real results, and have put everything possible into the program to do so.
We do run a tight operation though, and require a few things from you to make sure it makes sense to work together:
- willingness to commit and stick with a proven plan
- a few hours of time each week to learn and apply what we teach you
- some savings or cash flow to cover your cost of living as you learn the business
- you want real advice that works, and are open to a better way of building an online business
But on the other hand, here are some things that you don’t need to join:
- advanced or even intermediate coding and programming skills
- prior business experience - we teach you business skills from scratch
- a ton of free time - we get that you have a life and maybe a job to support yourself before the biz takes off
- a personal website, business cards etc. - there are better ways to get started without wasting time
- living in an English-speaking country (we have many students from Europe, South America and Asia)
- a perfect mindset - it’s ok if you have some fear and doubts about these types of things. That’s what we’re here for!
If you are willing to apply yourself and have the minimal resource to make this possible, this is a realistic option to start learning web design the right way. If you are a good fit, we will do everything we can to ensure you succeed.
There’s never been a better time to join…
The Fox Legends Program of course isn’t the only way to start an online business, but we do take a lot of hassle out of the way:
- A proven program that works, and has been successfully used by 100s of people on this forum. Some of which are now making $30-50k+/month consistently.
- A focus on the core business skills that matter most. Skills that you can use to succeed in web design, but which also create the business foundation you need for any bigger Fastlane ideas.
- A strong and active community that will help every step of the way. We are a loyal ground of people who want to help you to get going and to see you win!
- A business model that can work in pretty much every country and location on earth. And that also doesn't require you to have some crazy degree or all the right connections.
- A focus on what really matters and that lines up with the Fastlane philosophy. The goal is to NOT have you be a freelancer forever. It is to get you in, show you the skills to succeed, and then get you on to the next level.
And all this adds up to a great next step for anyone looking to get started with their first profitable online business.
PLUS - joining Fox Legends Program is super reasonable for the amount of value you get:
The Legends Program Deal:
So what I have done, is reduce the price to allow some more people to join.
If they are ready to go and fully committed!
So, right now, I’m offering it to you for over 50% off the original price.
And this includes all the same lifetime access, and all the training, content, live calls, community and bonus content.
This isn’t just about saving you money – it’s about getting you to commit to your goals and take action.
This is also an exclusive Fastlane deals that I don't offer anywhere else.
I love this forum and want to help as many members as possible - so this is the best price you can join at.
Also keep in mind, the whole focus here is a positive ROI for you on your money invested.
And this is quite easy - just one smaller website deal easily pays for this whole program.
And then you still have all the skills, training, community, and support with full lifetime access...
If you are interested - just click the link below, and I’ll send the Fastlane Deal details over to you right away.
Hey folks, just wanted to give you a quick update that the program is still going strong, and the private community is more active than ever.
Right now, I’m running a NEW deal on this program for the Fastlane forum only. If you already know what the program is about, check out the link below to claim the deal.
Otherwise, keep reading this post so I can show you how to get profitable with web design right now, in 2024.
>>> Claim Your Fastlane Legends Deal <<<
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Is web design still a profitable business in 2024?
If you've been following me here or on Youtube, you probably know that I started a web design business back in 2016. If you missed it, I have a full gold thread on how it went here.
In short, things went very well, I posted about it online, and others wanted some help starting their own web design businesses. So I eventually started this program (Fox Legends) to help more people at once.
Since then, I have worked with hundreds of people, helping many to start their first consistently profitable online business.
Now, a lot has happened since I got started – the economy, politics, business trends, the global marketplace, and so on. Every week there is some new global event, and it is easy to get distracted.
And while on the surface it looks like a lot has changed, I don't believe it has.
I feel strongly that the web design business model and the principles behind it haven't really changed one bit.
And the people focused on the right approach to web design are doing better than ever (I have top students doing $10,000 to $25,000 deals consistently).
Especially now, actually, when AI is making it ten times easier to build a website (more on this in a bit).
So if this is getting you excited, good. It should!
I have a lot to tell you about getting started, so keep on reading for more details...
Can web design still work in 2024 and if so is it a good choice?
This thread somewhat assumes that you are open to the idea of starting a web design business. Maybe you have even thought about trying web design in the past, but were not 100% sure if it was the right thing for YOU to pursue with all the different options out there.
Either way, the most common questions (and what we will cover in this thread) are:
- Is web design still a good option?
- Can I learn this with no past experience?
- How hard is it to learn web design and make money?
- How fast can I sell my first project and get profitable?
- How much coding skills do I have to know to sell websites?
- Is it too late for me to compete against others doing this for years?
- Can I take this step without getting stuck in something that's NOT right for me?
My goal is that by the time you finish reading this thread, you can definitively say either—“Yes, web design is a good option that fits with my long-term Fastlane plans”—or—“No, I can safely rule out web design for now.”
On top of this, you likely want a business to tick some important boxes:
These are the common personal requirements we see people asking about when it comes to web design. They are not exactly questions, but more "will it be possible to achieve this" type goals.
Let’s cover them first...
- You’re looking for a business model with very little or no downside risk
- You don't want to get caught up in "the next big thing" that's gone a week later.
- You are looking for a viable business model that can actually work - no playing around
- You prefer to build a skill set that is transferable if needed and useful in all business areas
- You need to be able to start right away using only the skills and resources you already have
- You don't want to have to go back to square one and start from scratch - or worse, try to get a job
- You don’t have the ability to invest $10,000s to buy a business or be able to order a bunch of inventory
- You need to be cash flow positive in a short period of time. You can't wait all year to start making money
- You want something easy to run without employees, an office, face-to-face meetings, or supply chains.
- You also want something that can be part of your bigger long-term Fastlane plan
So what does it take to succeed in web design in 2024?
Over the past 4+ years, I've been fortunate enough to help a lot of people get started with a profitable web design business. Through my own YouTube channel, this forum and several other places, we have built a great private community that helps everyone win big.
I try not to promote web design too much on the forums, but through my web design program there has been at least 300-350 members on here that I have helped get started with their first successful online business.
I also have my own Fox Web School YouTube channel (over 37,000 subscribers), my freelancing Instagram page (173,000 followers), and my email list of nearly 20,000 people.
All of these different places mean that I have now directly helped and coached literally thousands of different web designers and freelancers.
And what I want to cover below are the clear trends I have noticed on why some people succeed, while others get stuck or fail over and over.
And these strategies that we will cover do make a BIG difference.
I have had students with zero experience sell their very first website for MORE than some web designers with 5+ years experience have ever made on a single project.
AND it's not just about making profits either - they also do an amazing job of helping their clients get REAL business results.
It is a total win-win for everyone involved.
Is it difficult to design websites?
I’ll tell you a secret – I’m actually not a very good designer at all. And I still got my business to 6 figures within 6 months of starting it.
Again, that’s not because I’m a better designer. But because I’m a better salesperson than most designers.
I focus on selling the end result of having a great website (e.g. helping the business owner who hires you to make more money) instead of focusing on selling the visual quality of the design (e.g. how great the site looks).
To create a website is VERY easy in 2024. And there are literally hundreds of AI tools to help you with that.
If you ask most designers, they will tell you that AI is a threat and that they are scared it will steal all their clients… but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
What AI promises is “great web design”. But how we teach you to position your business is “helping business owners make more money with web design”.
See the difference? See why a potential client would be happy to hire you instead of using an AI tool themselves?
If you want to take the fastlane road, you have to understand this:
Technical skills won’t take you there – sales skills will. Learning to outsource will. Thinking like an entrepreneur will.
So no, it’s not difficult to design websites. And you don’t even have to think about it too much.
All you need is to know the basic stuff, like how to edit a template (and there is no need for coding to do that – there are drag-and-drop design tools you can use), and how to arrange the information on a website for the best results.
All of which we will teach you inside the program, but more on this later.
For now, let’s take a look at the different approaches to a web design business and why some people succeed while others don't.
Let's start by looking at what NOT to do...
The 2 Common Approaches to Web Design That WON'T Make You Profitable
#1 Wrong Approach - Focusing 100% on learning coding and technical skills
95%+ of web designers fail to achieve freedom because they spend all their time developing technical skills. They think that if they are experts in Javascript or Wordpress, they will be in demand and profitable.
They quickly find out, though, that it just doesn’t work that way. Business owners don’t think in terms of code and design — they instead keep focused on their most important business challenges or problems.
Can you imagine a business meeting where the owner tells his team, “We badly need to put more money into HTML and CSS this month”? That is never going to happen!
What matters most to a business owner is what clearly keeps their business running and growing. These are going to be areas like increasing sales, attracting new customers, or making sure everything is running efficiently.
It is these key business areas where you need to clearly show how you can help.
This is now twice as important in 2024. If you can’t help with creating sales, customers, or better systems most businesses are not going to want to listen to you at the moment. They want big results - right now.
It is in the key most important business areas where you need to clearly show how you can help.
To succeed you have to present what you can offer in a way that matters to them. If it isn’t easy for them to see the value in what you are selling, they will put it at the bottom of the list with 1,000 other things that need to be done someday.
What gets their attention is “here is how you can get more customers” not “I could improve your old Javascript”.
The people who do best don’t focus on selling the technical stuff - instead they look for ways to create value and then make it appealing for a business owner to invest in.
Often they actually have very little or average technical skills.
While advanced coding skills may get you a job, they alone won't make you an entrepreneur. Focusing too much on your technical skills usually results in you becoming just another cog in someone else's business. With a "need to learn more code" mindset, it is easy to become overqualified without a clear way to make money or sell yourself.
Unfortunately, a lot of web designers don't see this and keep going in the wrong direction.
And when it doesn't work, they mistakenly double down on the very skills that are already hurting them the most... "I don't get it - I can code amazingly - why can't I find work?".
I get a lot of this kind of DMs all the time - it doesn't work.
Also there are so many easy ways to make a website in 2022 with very basic coding skills and anything extra on top of that can be easily outsourced. The truth is you don’t need to be that good technically to run a profitable web design business. The real skills that make you profitable are often not technical.
(A lot of old school web designers or people who paid big money for coding degrees will disagree. BUT these same people complain they can’t get hired and there are no good clients. Business and selling skills always come first.)
Wrong Approach #2 – You focus on building beautifully-designed, custom-coded websites.
A lot of web design gurus out there will teach people that this is where the money is — spending weeks building fancy, custom-coded websites. But this approach doesn’t work well either.
First, you will end up working around the clock to make the perfect design. When you focus on selling design, you attract clients who think about how things look, rather than how well they work. You’ll have clients focused on the design of every pixel, section, and button. Many times, it means a lot of extra hours added to the project and dozens of rounds of changes.
I am sure some people on here have horror stories of these sort of projects! Design focused projects can be a nightmare.
Secondly, though, very few businesses care about design in the first place. When they don’t know what they want, they might say, “design,” but what they are really after is a solution to a deeper problem.
Your clients don’t really need elaborate custom illustrations, 3D graphics, tons of animations, and award-winning design. They don’t care much about a totally unique, fully custom website that’s nothing like a visitor has ever seen before.
What they are looking for is a real change in their business. They are secretly hoping that the fancy new design helps them get more sales, or brings in new customers. Often when you get to the core issue it was never really about design - it was something bigger they were after.
The cool thing is when you identify what really matters you can get a lot better results with much less work. There are way more effective (and easier) ways to help create sales than spending 100 hours on photoshop making custom graphics.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that visual design is useless or bad. It’s just one of the tools we can use to build great results. Just like with technical skills - it is nice to have but don’t let it be what you rely on to build your web business.
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Where both of the above examples go wrong is the same - putting specific skills before an overall approach that works.
Business owners don’t go to sleep thinking of code or design. They are thinking about their actual business.
Web design gets (very) profitable when you start to think bigger than just code and design...
The main reason people succeed with web design is by shifting their mindset to what really matters.
Instead of focusing on code or design they start to look at things from the business owners perspective.
These web designers only focus 20% of their time on learning technical skills and design, but the other 80% on mastering how to use and market those skills.
Many are not the “best” coders or designers, but they understand how to make their skills extremely valuable in the marketplace.
They realize that running a web design business has very little to do with technical skills or your design ability.
>>> It is all about creative problem solving and adding value. <<<
With that in mind, let’s look at how you can get started with learning and developing these core business skills...
A realistic plan to succeed at web design in the short, medium, and long term
There are three main stages you will progress through in your web design journey. These stages also show why web design is such a great way to learn the key skills we talked about above and to prepare for your future Fastlane ventures.
***I’ve included student case studies from people on this forum to show you what to expect at each stage. If you are one of the people (or another student), then feel free to add in more details below if you wish.***
The first stage: Getting started
This is where most people are going to be when they first join the program. They will either have started learning the basics of code or will have some coding skills but struggle with sales.
The first goal here is to change how you view web design and to focus on what matters most to a business owner. When you can see why they would buy, you can start to align what you are selling with what they want. This makes it a lot easier to sell, but it also means that what they hire you for is much more valuable for them, too. It is 100% win-win.
The second goal is to help develop a winning mindset for business (and life). After 100s of interactions with students, I’ve noticed that mindset is one of the biggest issues holding most people back. So we put plenty of focus into helping you overcome any mindset issues. Such as self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism or poor self-management.
In around 1-3 months, our students will typically land their first $1,000+ project. Getting that first win under your belt feels great and creates a ton of momentum! While this isn’t life-changing money, it’s still a great first milestone, and it helps to confirm the fact that you’re building a solid foundation of skills. You’re learning how to sell, how to close deals, and how to manage a project. You’re changing the way you see business. You’re beginning to help others and be in demand.
(Plus it means you will have already paid off the full lifetime access to the program!)
A good example of this is Owen...
Owen joined in May of last year after seeing this thread on here.
He had little in the way of coding or web design experience...
By August, he was using the sales and business skills from the program to land website and SEO deals...
And then, by November was able to hit a big personal goal and quit his job. ..
For a student who shows up and takes action with the program, these are the sort of results we would expect them to hit.
Another great student example is @Isaac Oh
Isaac started a few months back and has gone from a $500 project to a $2,500 project to just recently enjoying his first month of over $10,000. Keep in mind that he only just started to learn code when he joined, too. This isn’t about just charging massive prices either - his clients are getting massive value and huge results from his websites.
***Update***: Isaac has now transitioned into running a full blown agency with the skills he has picked up in this program. He works with some amazing clients and is running a steady 6-figure a year business...
These posts above are taken from the private FB group, and you will see success posts like this every week.
And here is another recent one from Instagram, of someone who took my previous program that I promoted on the Fastlane forums...
Medium Term (1-2 years):
This is where you start to focus on building a steady income and a solid base of clients and referrals.
While big payday projects are great, to succeed long-term, you also want consistent cash flow.
So this stage is all about building the right relationships, helping businesses in a big way, and becoming a longterm trusted advisor.
The cool thing is that as you build more trust with each new client, you also get to learn a lot about how successful businesses grow and thrive. You get an inside look at how their businesses run - which means you can develop real, transferable skills. On some projects, you can get dozens of hours working alongside seasoned successful business owners.
This experience helps with a lot more than just web design. It can be very hard to get this kind of insight elsewhere, but with web design, business owners share openly with you as you work together. You get a lot of exposure to what makes a business successful, what creates sales, and what keeps customers coming back. It’s like a bonus mini MBA of sorts.
To give a few examples of people at this stage who started with just making websites and who are now quickly going Fastlane...
A great example of this is @GuitarManDan. You probably have already seen his own great gold progress thread on here, but I will quickly cover his progress....
Dan started his web design business in 2018 using my previous course and had a very decent year or two. However, he wanted to take things to the next level and didn’t want to get complacent. He then joined the full Fox Legends Program.
After joining, he absolutely crushed it, and along with some big website sales, did super well with building recurring revenue too. To give just one example, he landed a $25,000 sale from a cold email technique that I shared in the course (but Dan gets all the credit for taking tons of consistent action!).
Within the first year he was already well into building a steady six-figure web design and SEO business.
But he didn't stop there...
He has also created a truly Fastlane business on top of his web design business with massive potential. It is still in the early stages of scaling it up, but he is already at over $60/k a month, and this is the exact goal we love to help people towards with the program.
You can see his latest progress here...
(Screenshot from Dan's progress thread)
Long-term (2-3+ years)
I hinted at this with Dan's story, but our end goal with this approach to web design is much bigger than just making some websites. This last stage is really what separates this program from other options.
As much as we love web design (and we do!), we always see it more of a launching pad than an end destination. Our end goal is always for our students to use their web design experience to go on to launch an even bigger Fastlane-style business.
If you think about any successful Fastlane business, you will need a certain set of skills:
- How to find unfulfilled needs in the marketplace
- How to create a valuable product or service
-How to then sell that product or service
- How to scale your business
- And so on
Once you pick up these skills through web design, you will be ready to keep on moving to the next Fastlane level.
It is a natural next stage and one we have built into the way we run this program from the very beginning.
If have done our job right, during this stage you will feel ready to use what you have learned (and your cash flow from projects) to reach for that next level.
A good example of this is @MJ DeMarco himself. Now obviously, MJ isn’t a student or has taken any of my training, but if you look back at MJ’s story (before his big successes), he first started paying his bills and improving his skills through web design work...
“I aggressively marketed my website. I sent out emails. Cold-called. Mailed letters. I learned search engine optimization (SEO). Because I couldn’t afford books, I visited the Phoenix library daily and persisted to read about Internet programming languages. I improved my website, learned about graphics and copywriting. Anything that could help me, I consumed.
Then one day I had a breakthrough; I received a call from a company in Kansas who raved about my website service and wanted me to design their website. Sure. I obliged with a price of $400. They thought the price was a steal and within 24 hours, I built the company their website. I was ecstatic. In 24 hours, I had most of the rent payment. Then ironically, not 24 hours later, I received another call from a company in New York asking for the same thing… a new website. I designed theirs for $600 and it took me two days to complete. I had another rent payment! Now, I know this isn’t a lot of money, but from poverty to $1000 in three days felt like winning the fifty million dollar Powerball.
My first few months in Phoenix, I gained traction and survived on my own for the first time in my life. No flower boy. No bus boy. No pizza delivery. No sponging off mom. I was purely self-employed! I was momentous acceleration, a wind at my back that foreshadowed a directional change into a new universe of wealth generation.’
and...
“I took a contented pause thankful of my recent move and glanced at my bank balance. It was more than $5,000 and it was more money than I ever knew. Now I realize that $5K is not a lot of money, basically it is bankrupt. However at that moment in my life, it meant not having to get a job for at least another year.
You see, that $5,000 bought me one year of freedom. Freedom to pursue success. Freedom to do what was necessary. Freedom to pursue my dream. For the next year, I was guaranteed to own every hour of my life.”
Links:
https://www.mjdemarco.com/my-story/
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/one-year-of-flf.56628/#post-417628 (post #17)
This is a great example of starting web design in the best way possible - with a focus on using it to go much further when the time is right. And I fully agree with MJ here and think web design is NOT a great long-term option. The best web designers are always people who used web design to go on to do something much bigger! That is how you make it truly Fastlane.
But for someone on here right now without a solid business plan, who doesn’t have a ton of money in the bank to invest, and who might be struggling with core business abilities such as mindset or sales, then web design can be a perfect option to get you to where you want to be long term.
What are the key ingredients to make Web Design work for me?
The mistake I have seen over and over is people who have the best of intentions, but head completely down the wrong road. They focus on developing the wrong skills, working with the wrong type of clients, and having no idea how to increase their sales or results.
What can seem like progress at first can quickly turn into a dead end. They end up working for free or cheap for months on end, yet things are still not improving. They are no closer to big sales or any real success.
Web design is definitely not an area where hard work is necessarily going to pay off - you have to think strategically.
Where is a good place to start?
Get a good game plan. No matter how low your current skills or experience might seem, with a solid plan you can make massive progress in a short amount of time. Just one or two projects done the right way will add up very fast.
Along with that surround yourself with the people who are already getting good results and learn from them. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The people who run successful web design businesses use the same effective tactics over and over again. This is where a coach or mentor is going to be key. You might think I am biased (since I also coach) but I invested a lot in coaching and training when I first started. I still do.
On top of this it's crucial to have a solid support system to keep you motivated and focused. Working as a web designer can be quite challenging if you are fully alone. By being a part of a group of like minded people though, you can keep yourself accountable while making a ton of personal and business progress. A strong network is a must.
These core ingredients to web design success is why we have structured Fox Web School the way we have. We saw what what would work best and then built a program that provides you with everything you need to succeed.
What Fox Web School Can Offer
Nobody needs another generic course that gets you average results. There are plenty of these, and they churn out people who will never make more than a few $100 for a website.
What you need right now is the right coaching and blueprint (along with a proper community) for creating real success. You want a proven program to develop the right skills for you in the right order - and that keeps you motivated and moving in the right direction.
That is exactly what you get when you join Fox Web School.
We focus on helping you master important business skills that make a real difference.
These are skills like:
- finding big needs in the marketplace
- persuasion and communication
- taking huge amounts of action
- overall business strategy
- problem solving skills
- sales and marketing
- solid self-control
- and mindset
And all of this adds up to a dangerous skillset you can then use to build any type of Fastlane business.
In fact, since this program launched in 2019, we have already helped 350+ members directly from this forum plus over 1,300 students total. We have worked hard on making a great program and community that over-delivers and consistently gets results.
This program is known as the “Fox Legends Program". And it was built with a specific end-goal of first helping you to get profitable with web design - and then showing you how to use web design to go even bigger.
To keep this post a bit shorter we haven’t packed it full of reviews (we have 100s) but if you look around this thread or on the forum you will find many. Also, on Trustpilot we have well over one hundred 5-star reviews...
We are always working hard to improve things, but the program is already completely proven to help new students see great results and consistent progress.
Based off what has been proven to work best so far the program structure is:
a) Stage one - Get Dialled In
- How to quickly develop the mindset of a successful entrepreneur
- Why people will buy websites from you (at a high price)
- How to quickly learn the business of web design and use it to start any online business
- How to control your own internal mindset and actions
- This section of the course will show you how to go from zero to charging $10,000 plus for web design projects. We will cover all you need to know and how to do this with zero previous skills.
- You’ll also master selling, prospecting, copywriting, proposals, communication and how to spot and solve large business problems. These are the core skills you need in any business.
- You’ll also learn the bigger skills needed to grow and guide a business like goal setting, strategy, planning, thinking big, and creating a vision you and your team can buy into.
- In this final section, you’ll be ready to use your combined web experience, skills, and cash flow to start creating your own Fastlane business on top of web design.
- We will give you the tools to start finding ideas, know how to add value, how to start a new business around strong market needs, and how to get your first customers rolling in.
- The goal of this stage is to help get you ready to create a truly “Fastlane” type business that you can transition into from web design. Web design is great and a fantastic place to start but we will make sure to see you the whole way through to even bigger business success.
(This is an overview of the general stages - use the link below and I will send you a FULL program breakdown)
>>> Get The Details on Your Fastlane Legends Program Deal <<<Also, you get access to our amazing community...
Monthly live calls
Every month, we have several group live calls hosted personally by myself.
There are open format on Zoom - and are a place where you can share your progress, ask questions, get direct feedback, and speed up your learning pace.
Since I have started the program I have hosted several hundred of these calls - which is something you won't see in hardly any other program. (Cause I actually care about getting you results!)
And since we get asked this a lot – we record all calls and have a system in place to get your questions answered if you can’t make a call. This also means all the past live calls are available once you join too!
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We also try to do some Guest live calls - with some notable past calls being MJ DeMarco himself, along with John Kavanagh (Conor McGregor's coach), and James Jani (1.6 Million Youtube subs).
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Membership to the private Fox Legends Program Facebook group
You’ll also get full access to our private Facebook group, where you can interact with your fellow students. You all know what a private Facebook group is, but this one is different.
For a change, this one is actually very active and high value with detailed posts and daily engagement.
You won’t need to wait longer than a few hours at most to get a response to your question.
In fact, it is common to see whole sale pitches and proposals get created and then successfully closed in the Facebook group each week! If you join, and have any issues with web design, your business, motivation, mindset etc. – we are always in the group ready to help.
I know from experience just how critical it is to surround yourself with other motivated people if you want to hit your goals. And while I might be a bit biased, I truly believe our community is one of the best places to do that.
(If I’m being honest, this is probably my favourite part of the program. Pretty much everyone who joins is blown away by how supportive all of the members inside the Legends community are.)
Extra Resources
Along with the full program I have also invested back into getting in the best guest coaches possible for some additional bonus courses.
There include:
- Learning Google Ads with @Andy Black
- Copywriting Skills with @Bekit
- Mini Agency Course with Isaac Oh
- Facebook Ads course with Tate Morgan
- Starting SEO course with Steve Deane
- Webflow Starter course from Eli Alcaraz
- As well as bonus coaching calls from a few of the top members on this forum
So it is pretty stacked with all the skills you need to get going!
>>> Get The Details on Your Fastlane Legends Program Deal <<<
What you need to be able to join…
We run things a little differently to most communities and it also means our deal is way better.
First off - we give you FULL lifetime access. So once you pay upfront (or complete your plan) you then have full lifetime access to everything. This also means you can access everything once you join - so no waiting around for things to unlock or for you to get access permission.
Which is pretty crazy. Most programs on this level limit you to only 6 or 8 weeks and that is it. I have been happy to continue to help out all the members who have joined over the last 3 years. Which has the added benefit for you of having a ton of experienced people in the group once you join.
Bottom line - I really do care you get real results, and have put everything possible into the program to do so.
We do run a tight operation though, and require a few things from you to make sure it makes sense to work together:
- willingness to commit and stick with a proven plan - a few hours of time each week to learn and apply what we teach you - some savings or cash flow to cover your cost of living as you learn the business - you want real advice that works, and are open to a better way of building an online businessBut on the other hand, here are some things that you don’t need to join:
- advanced or even intermediate coding and programming skills - prior business experience - we teach you business skills from scratch - a ton of free time - we get that you have a life and maybe a job to support yourself before the biz takes off - a personal website, business cards etc. - there are better ways to get started without wasting time - living in an English-speaking country (we have many students from Europe, South America and Asia) - a perfect mindset - it’s ok if you have some fear and doubts about these types of things. That’s what we’re here for!If you are willing to apply yourself and have the minimal resource to make this possible, this is a realistic option to start learning web design the right way. If you are a good fit, we will do everything we can to ensure you succeed.
There’s never been a better time to join…
The Fox Legends Program of course isn’t the only way to start an online business, but we do take a lot of hassle out of the way:
- A proven program that works, and has been successfully used by 100s of people on this forum. Some of which are now making $30-50k+/month consistently.
- A focus on the core business skills that matter most. Skills that you can use to succeed in web design, but which also create the business foundation you need for any bigger Fastlane ideas.
- A strong and active community that will help every step of the way. We are a loyal ground of people who want to help you to get going and to see you win!
- A business model that can work in pretty much every country and location on earth. And that also doesn't require you to have some crazy degree or all the right connections.
- A focus on what really matters and that lines up with the Fastlane philosophy. The goal is to NOT have you be a freelancer forever. It is to get you in, show you the skills to succeed, and then get you on to the next level.
And all this adds up to a great next step for anyone looking to get started with their first profitable online business.
PLUS - joining Fox Legends Program is super reasonable for the amount of value you get:
The Legends Program Deal:
The Legends Program used to be a $2,000 investment to join. But while it’s been helping hundreds of people to get massive results, this price is just not possible for some people. They want to join, but can’t afford it.So what I have done, is reduce the price to allow some more people to join.
If they are ready to go and fully committed!
So, right now, I’m offering it to you for over 50% off the original price.
And this includes all the same lifetime access, and all the training, content, live calls, community and bonus content.
This isn’t just about saving you money – it’s about getting you to commit to your goals and take action.
This is also an exclusive Fastlane deals that I don't offer anywhere else.
I love this forum and want to help as many members as possible - so this is the best price you can join at.
Also keep in mind, the whole focus here is a positive ROI for you on your money invested.
And this is quite easy - just one smaller website deal easily pays for this whole program.
And then you still have all the skills, training, community, and support with full lifetime access...
If you are interested - just click the link below, and I’ll send the Fastlane Deal details over to you right away.
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