Day 1 - Starting Biz Tomorrow [Am I missing anything?]

The only thing that you are missing is to start calling. Good luck!

Your site needs to be optimized for IE.
It stretches as I navigate.

Otherwize your plan sounds good.

Make records of your phone calls
so you can track prospects status
and see patterns of what works best
for you and niches to pursue...
Also, in terms of dialogue you used -
which converts best...

Vet other web designers in case
your guy is no good or is too busy
for the turnaround a new client wants.
Also, be care-ful of where you get in
your web designer's stack of business and keep
him on top of your clients' needs/promises you made.


Dan

Looks like you have a clear-cut idea of what you're doing. Just get it started immediately. Test, tweak, and refine.

Looks like you are prepared and also have the passion! Good Luck man.

All I would add is to stay focused and even if things don't go your way at first stay persistent and you will succeed.

Last prepare for the worst and have back up for outsourcing and other forms of getting clients other then cold calling.

The game plan you've set is nice. Stick to that plan and everything else will follow as to your goal.

You may want to look at taking checks by phone(electronic checks). There have many posts here about taking checks, to avoid chargebacks from clients who pay by credit card and want to take advantage of you. It's sad, but it does happen, better to be prepared.

If you do want to take credit card payments you may want to be sure to have a refund policy posted. If a client does try to do a chargeback, this may protect you. Having a refund policy posted has protected me in a couple of cases. It's not full proof, but it's better than not having one.

Keep your lists, even after going through them. Many of the people you talk to will tell you "No" one day, you'll call them again a few weeks later, like you've never called them before, and they will be interested. You can usually go through a list, repeatedly, at least 3 times and pull additional clients from it.

Hey Bro.
I don't know you but just thought I'd see what you were all about.. I just wanted to post this part of your Intro, or Contact info.. It's a bit confusing.. I just cut/pasted it.. I'm just trying to help you out.. Read through every page and make sure it flows.

Good luck Man,

Appreciate you stopping by and checking out what I have to say. No? get this straight, unlike most bloggers, who get email and never respond to them, I read every? floods my inbox to respond to about 99% of them (remaining 1% - is spam lol).
But hand? on for a sec, before you email me, here are a couple of pointers:

Bring your contact info higher on your site with a call to action.

Line up a few more designers. On Odesk, for $100, your quality is going to be very low (just a prediction).

Forget about low prices. Sell at a higher price point so you can hire a better developer. You will avoid headaches this way.

People say you should under-promise and over-deliver. I think that is terrible advice. Over-promise, sell the moon, get an appropriate payment, and then over-deliver on THOSE promises.

If you take that attitude, you will charge correctly and have very happy clients.

I like your site.

By all means start cold calling, but why not choose an industry and start a marketing blog for that industry and attract leads that way? In time, you would have a list of businesses interested in your marketing. You could sell additional services and additional websites to them.

Think of the long term so you aren't dependent on cold calling for years.

Do you offer other solutions such as content/SEO? If you don't, you might want to find some partners to work with so when prospects ask about rankings and content you have a solution for them. Most small business owners don't want to write content for a site ... they want it done for them. They also expect their site to rank in the search engines.

I can definitely say I'm pumped for you.

Because most importantly, you haven't really wrote a list of goals. You have wrote a list of things you ALREADY accomplished. And that speaks volumes about where your head is at and how well you will actually perform with this business.

Although many of these first steps probably seemed easy to you, please keep in mind that many people dream about taking these first steps their entire lives, w/out doing a thing.

So if you want my honest feedback, you've already succeeded.

You are focused.
You have a clear goal.
You can taste the money.
Your actions have proven this.

And you will get that money. I have no doubt about that.

When I was doing web design my goal was 4k a month, and I was able to reach it after month #2. So your goal seems perfectly clear and reasonable to me.

Nothing left to do but marketing and sales, which is the fun part!

=]

Good luck - Red

It's good you're actually going to do something...that's always the hardest part for most. I'm quite sure after a couple weeks you'll have an education about dealing with businesses you never thought you could have. You'll tweak a couple things and only get better.

I'm not going to argue with your statistic that 72% don't have a website because I'm not a web developer.

I do know this though...a lot of companies already have a website. The problem they have is they had their site built a few years ago and it's way outdated.

I would suggest you keep open the possibility to redo older sites. I think there's a huge market out there.

A lot of those you call may tell you they have a site, but if you dig deeper you'll find out their site is useless. They can't update it on their own and the whole thing looks like something from the 90's.

Just a thought.

Personally I hate cold calling - have you tried direct mail?

Wow! Thanks guys for the encouragement. Didn't realize so many posts came up under this thread.

Just to pin down somethings mentioned here:

1. I am only going to design or re-design websites. Thats what I want "I Want A Website.net" brand to do and thats it. I don't confuse things. I believe that if I keep it simple the more easier it will be to scale it up. I pick a niche, focus on it, master it and use the brand to my advantage. If I want to branch out into SEO and etc, I'll create another business system and launch that service. Thats just me lol.

I think with this process I have setup cold call >> setup appointment >> close >> design >> deliver >> customer service... I can automate the process and eventually hand it off to other people.

2. Why cold call? Lol its just the fastest to generate business. There might be more efficient ways but cold calling is the fastest.

Day 1 : This past friday.

dials - 100
people talked to - 44
DM's talked to - 19
Hot leads - 6
Appointments set - 2

Weekend is over, Day 2 tomorrow! I am going to have a check in hand this week.

Way to go! As others here have said, you are starting off well in that you have a definitive focus, have laid the preliminary foundation and are actually getting to generating leads. Extra kudos to you for cold calling. If you've read for anytime here, you know that that is something most people complain about, but never do. In fact, they avoid it like the plague. If you can do all this, all there is to do is to keep going. This process will present many lessons that will help you grow your business

All the best to you,

Tracy

Just curious about how you classify what a "hot lead" is
What are they saying short of "lets meet" that makes
you consider them hot.

Have a great week.

Really interested in knowing your progress!

You have all the fundamentals laid down, great work.

Next I would create a marketing plan, and set yourself some business objectives. Having a plan to call 100 business is a good start, but focus on your goals and not business activity.

What I found useful in setting up my business was to use the GOSPA model of strategic management. GOSPA stands for:

Goals: The end result, how much MONEY are you going to make?

Objectives: List how many objectives (sales), do you need to make to make to hit your goal

Strategies: How are you going to make those sales? How are you going to pitch them? How will you show value? What selling tactics will you use?

Plans: Write down everything you need to do based on priority, this is where you'll form a list of things to do to fulfil the strategies to hit the sales to achieve your revenue target.

Actions: Write down what you are going to do on your list of plans and prioritise them based on value and urgency and then focus on doing these activities day by day to fulfil your plans

Out of those 100 dials you will set yourself a goal of setting x amount of appointments which lead to x amount of presentations getting x amount of sales.

Then every morning I would write down your sales goals for that day. Remember your unconscious mind will deliver whatever results you program into it, and goals are what is going to fuel your furnace of achievement.

'I have made 3 sales by 5:30 today.'

'I have made $4,000 in sales by the end of this week.'

'I have made 5 qualified appointments by 2:30pm tomorrow.'

Once you get your business off the ground I would then keep raising your goals higher and higher. Make goals that excite you, because pretty soon 5 or 6 sales a week isn't going to motivate you to take action. Think big!

'I make $200,000 per year by 01/03/2014'

'I have made $10,000 in sales by end of this week.'

The only thing which may hold you back is your belief that it's possible. At the start these goals may seem huge, but the more you write down your goals, review them and think about them, the more your unconscious faculty will unlock your dormant potential. I cannot stress how important this is!

Then eliminate any distractions and prioritise your prospecting above anything else. 8am to 6pm should be regarded as your holy time, do anything else you need to do after and before these times and focus on business generation.

Good luck and god speed,

Pantera

i personally think your website is awful, fix it

I love your plan though. Good luck!

I like your enthusiasm Osman, that is half the battle :-)

Personally I think there is a room for a big improvement as far as your website is concerned.

Don't forget, you will have only one chance to make the right first impression ;o

Having said all that I like your determination and drive, I'm sure you will be fine and do well

LOL, I'm loving the website critic. Thanks guys. Once I get sometime I'll be sure to work on a better site or better yet outsource to you experts.

At the moment, I'm too busy handling my clients. I closed off 4 deals this past week.

Client 1 - redesign - $900
Client 2 - new site - $800
Client 3 - new site - $1250
Client 4 - redesign - $1500

My cost has been $400 so I made a decent profit of $4050 in the first week. For the people who pointed out concerns about getting a website made for $100 and it not being quality....trust me I have been working with the developer for over a year now and have established an amazing relationship. I have been giving him consistent work for the last year and he gives me nothing but quality.

I appreciate the support you guys are giving me and the other members through PM's. Its amazing to come back and see this thread with amazing posts.

For the people who are always hung over on the little details and everything needing to be perfect, my advice: follow people who have succeed and just copy there ways. People like John, Jason and Bob Ross. These guys and many more already have won and they clearly show you how they did it Lol. It can't get easier then that.

There are tons who can make sites, make logos, design everything and anything and do all the WORK that needs to get done..... But there are very few who can sell. Learn how to sell or else you'll be out of business pretty quick.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully another dollar. Happy weekend.

Osman,

Congratulations on your success! I really wish you the best! You deserve it!

I have a question for you. Does your sales process involve meeting in person with the client after talking on the phone? Or do you do everything by phone?

I had been getting a lot of PM's for an update so rather just replying to each and everyone I'll post it up in the thread.

UPDATE:

Making money is easy lol, you just have to be willing to commit and do it. What a cliche statement lol.

I have been making consistent $6k profit since I started every month. Albeit it hasn't been that long but I'm only still selling, web design, re-design and mobile site design services. Im outsourcing all development.

My prospecting method hasn't changed much, still cold calling but only 50 businesses a day now. I have also dived into LinkedIn and bunch of other prospecting methods just to test but cold calling is still number one. That is one thing that has not changed. Its a ritual for me 5 days a week to call 50 businesses a day. Plain and simple it helps me meet my goals and gets the job done.

I'm averaging about 3-5 new clients per month and that's all I'm needing to make 6k profit. I have let go of smaller projects even though it would increase revenue and profit but too much stress will be the cost. At minimum a project must avail me $1k profit and then I will take it on.

Other then that, some people might be surprised but I set my own timetable. Since I started, I'm only working 3 weeks a month and taking the last week off in every month. I'm using some free time to try different niche businesses. Needless to say, I have accomplished a process of prospecting, closing, and outsourcing the work.

My next move, is to tackle 10k month profit. Which in my estimation will require me to work the last week of every month as well and I'm just not about to give that family time up yet lol. So, I'm going to tackle another business aspect is hiring a sales person.

All in all, I'm content with what I have achieved thus far and now its time to up the game.

Sorry for the long read guys but hopefully it will be helpful to some people.

There are a bunch of tools I'm using to automate a lot of tedious business related tasks and if you guys would like to know more about those then let me know.

That's all for now. :-)

Cheers.

LOL, its funny you mention that because the time I started this thread back in March, that was brought up by so many people...that the website sucks, no lead capture form and etc.

And for sure, most people are correct that the website is dull. Its getting a new design as we speak. But really honestly speaking, focus on goals, results and I sincerely believe that will get a person further down the line then a fancy website.

However, as an education point I would like to mention this that in the little experience I have had thus far....not one client, not even a single one asked about my website, whether I knew html, wordpress, joomla or whether I have an office, where am I located or anything of that sort. Not to say all these things are not important but in the same token, these things should not hold anyone back.

It just goes to show, as long as a person provides solution for the business owners, business owners will be happy.

You are pretty much set for business. Remember to include God in your plans. Pray and work hard everyday and your first cheque is not so far away

Thanks for the replies Osman, loving it!

Another question, regarding Freshbooks (since I use it), did you say there was a contract template where clients can sign? Do you use the Right Signature addon, or something else?

nice plan! And I would like to know how far you've gone with profit making so far

What an inspiration for success.

With a clear focus you'll do well in this enterprise, like your site, design and colour scheme is catchy.

Mikaedi88

Congrats Osman_M:
I am glad to see someone planning and achieving their dreams.
Very specific and concrete goals making easier to be accountable to your promises.
Thanks to PanteraIM....I like your GOSPA model of strategic management. It was the theory of Osman_M´s first draft.
Thank you guys...